


Masked Riders

by Lucius Parhelion (Parhelion)



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1860s, California, Cowboys, Historical, M/M, Old West, Period-Typical Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-01
Updated: 2006-11-01
Packaged: 2018-12-03 12:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parhelion/pseuds/Lucius%20Parhelion
Summary: Jesse Putnam, veteran of the G.A.R. and ranch manager, has no one but himself to blame when he realizes the foreman assigned to help him investigate the problems on the Southern Californian acres of a railway baroness has a face that’s all too familiar.





	Masked Riders

I — How a Helping Hand May Be Worse Than a Hindering One

Jesse thought of himself as a cautious man. Nonetheless, his current companion was tugging away Jesse's normal reserve. As the strong fingers stroked and squeezed his cock with uncommon deftness, Jesse was possessed by a singular notion. He wanted to cease working the fellow's own cock in favor of embracing him and savoring their mutual intercourse.

Such an indulgence would not only be rude but fatal to the usual pretense in these situations. Supposedly, they were trading sexual favors only to avoid the wretched diseases plaguing the female habitués of San Francisco's cribs and parlor houses in this year of 1869. Even so, Jesse was sorely tempted. The intimate company of another stock-tender was a rare delight. This rarity was why desire had overcome Jesse's aloofness when his gaze met his neighbor's as they took adjacent seats at the Bella Union Melodeon. Something about the way the fellow had smiled first made Jesse's mouth go dry and then fired him with impetuosity. The subsequent conversation had ended here, with Jesse sitting on this cheap bed in a Barbary Coast boardinghouse while his cock was worked with strength and warmth.

By God, Jesse already wanted to spend. He needed some distraction. Examining his companion might help; the man was too tow-haired, his skin too pale beneath his cuffs and collar, to be one of the old rancho Mexicans, even if all else about him argued that he must have worked as a hand for many years. As they had strolled towards this boarding house, Jesse had savored the wide-legged walk and the weather-worn appearance of someone who had spent decades herding stock from atop a saddle. The fellow also wore the familiar high-heeled boots, if not the raking Mexican spurs, of the true vaquero. Even his palm and fingers had a vaquero's calluses as they moved fitfully now, likely distracted by his own pleasure, up and down Jesse's cock.

For his part, Jesse had roped back his urges. He was far enough below his peak to once again concentrate on what he was doing. Stroking hard and fast, he felt the subtle movements and the trace of moisture that told him his companion was about ready to finish. As he looked into the pale blue eyes so close to his own, he saw them widen.

"This what you need?" Jesse asked.

"That's right."

The fellow's voice had a low huskiness that made Jesse smile while measuring out the desired rhythm of skin on skin. His companion returned the smile before losing any pretense of civilized expression. Usually in such bold company Jesse would have watched the cock in his hand, wanting to see it spend. This time Jesse studied his companion's face. The look on it turned Jesse's mind back to his own pleasure, enough so that the first bit of handiwork that the fellow did after his breathing eased pushed Jesse off his own peak.

When they were done, the customs of such encounters again governed their behavior. Since Jesse had paid for the room, he would be the last to leave. The danger was small that someone would notice that two men had shared the space meant to be used by a patron and a saloon girl, but that small danger still belonged to the host. Jesse reclined on the straw-stuffed mattress and watched his companion clean up at the chipped basin on the washstand.

Muscular and rangy, almost as tall as Jesse, he was altogether to Jesse's taste even if he did look to be nearing his fortieth year. Such an estimate made him about a decade older than Jesse, but Jesse didn't mind. He'd never been one for youngsters even after covertly perusing the arguments for boys in pagan literature while his professors thought they were tasking him with Cicero and Aristotle. As well, Jesse like the honed look that years of exertion earned a man, especially when that toughness combined with conversation that hinted at a lively intelligence.

He wished that he could ask this fellow for his name or invite him out for a drink at someplace passable like the Cobweb Palace, but these sorts of meetings did not yield acquaintances. Instead Jesse's recent accomplice in gross illegality picked up his broad-brimmed hat and turned towards the bed where Jesse still lounged. Maybe Jesse only imagined the slight pause before the fellow said, "Thank you, sir. Good afternoon," and let himself out into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

Jesse hoped that he had not invented the hesitation. He preferred to believe that he had made a favorable impression, perhaps one strong enough that he would be remembered. Without such forced optimism, these brief encounters would be unbearable even if Jesse had been long enough without virile intimacy to urgently need such easing.

Getting up, he went over to the washstand. He was sure that he was frowning as he poured what was left of the water from the white-painted tin pitcher into the basin. Need or no, even if business kept him in San Francisco after tomorrow, he would not be doing this again. Little about being a man for men was the way that he wanted it to be.

The corridor was empty when Jesse eased the door open, and he departed the premises with some briskness. Once outside, he worked through crowds thickening as night fell and San Francisco's laborers joined the usual miners and sailors in their wanderings from dives to dancehalls and back again. As far as Jesse could tell, no one was following him, good reason for his having worn his working clothes on this trip. When he dressed as a ranch-hand even pick-pockets ignored him; only the doormen at the cheapest melodeons and the crib girls leaning out from upper-floor windows greeted him with raucous propositions. They were no hindrance to his strolling towards the respectability of Montgomery Street, where he turned south.

Neither the doorman nor the desk clerk at the Lick House Hotel evinced any surprise at Jesse's workaday garb. He was far from their first patron to visit the Barbary Coast in search of distraction, and it was the duty of a fine establishment's employees to remember a resident's face when they saw it. At least, it was their task to remember him until the police or the press came calling. Money, no matter its source, could protect a man from a thousand perversities. Jesse snorted at his own cynicism as he unlocked the door to his room.

Doffing his riding hat, Jesse tossed it in the general direction of the hat-rack and then took himself from the rented parlor into the bedroom. He had time to change into evening dress before supper was announced in the enormous Corinthian-columned restaurant downstairs, and he had better do so. Laborers were not welcomed in the Lick House restaurant. Instead, it was the haunt of so-called gentlemen.

To Jesse's way of thinking, choosing between the dives of the Barbary Coast and the fine establishments of Montgomery Street was like choosing between rotgut and rye whiskey. Given how much he loathed both tipples, he would be glad when he could return to the ranch.

Ah, well. Perhaps the famous antelope steak would be on the menu this evening.

***

That next morning Jesse straightened the pointed loops of his bow tie as he examined his reflection in the mirror. Then he frowned. He slipped his hands back into the straps of his sterling hairbrushes for another pass of the boar's bristles through his dark, pomaded hair. A last glance assured him that his cowlick was now firmly subdued, so he picked up his top hat, gloves, and walking stick. When Jesse left Lick House five minutes later, he was wearing a passably tailored frock coat, suitable garb for Colonel Godfrey Jesse Putnam when calling upon the Giffords of Rincon Hill.

His formal dress felt odd these days. He was glad that it was not also uncomfortable: although rarely worn, his old morning suit fit well and was close to this year's fashion. Only his shoes were annoying. Four years of riding in the Union Cavalry followed by another three years of riding on California ranches had given boots a comfort no longer offered by the fine shoes he had worn as a youth in Boston.

After nodding to the doorman, Jesse turned his face upwards. Outside the Lick's doors, the sun shone with pleasant warmth from a clear blue sky, and the breeze was off San Francisco Bay. Shoes or no shoes, he abjured the horsecar lines and risked sore feet by walking up Rincon Hill. His small gamble was rewarded: the day continued clement for March and the breeze fended off any fog. Jesse was still in good state when he rapped the knocker at the Gifford's residence.

The parlormaid had smiled as she took his hat and gloves, and no frown marred his aunt's countenance as she rose from her settee to receive his kiss upon her cheek. Jesse had to bend low: he was tall and Aunt Ada was quite short. She was clad in a yellow silk morning dress that Jesse would wager was only a year or so off the latest Parisian fashions. She smelled faintly of lavender, and her wrinkles were rearranged by a soft smile as she acknowledged his greetings. The gaze of her china-blue eyes was sharp enough to cut glass.

After she had settled the folds of her skirts around her, Ada said, "How kind of you to respond so promptly to my telegraph."

"It was my pleasure." That was a taradiddle. It was his duty. This last year, after a siege of three year's duration, he had finally yielded to the alternating pleas and commands of his parents and agreed to manage one of Uncle Hiram's ranches. And Jesse was no fool: Hiram may have doubled his fortune by selling supplies to miners on the Mother Lode, and was now redoubling it by allying with the builders of the Central Pacific railroad, but Ada was the one who had always done Hiram's arithmetic for him. If she asked for anything, Jesse hastened to obey. "Since you did not specify why I was being summoned, I failed to bring along the ranch's books. I hope that will not create any difficulties."

Ada fluttered her fingertips at him. "No, no. Not only does our business lie elsewhere, but Hiram's auditors are already occupied. We will review your annual accounts in November along with those of our other managers."

He bowed his head. "How, then, may I be of assistance?"

"We need you to look into an unfortunate matter for us."

Unfortunate? In his aunt's vocabulary, such a word could cover anything from a clerk embezzling a single ounce of silver bullion to several districts of San Francisco burning down again. The former was more likely, though; Jesse's mercantile relatives would spend a hundred gold dollars to stave off a single greenback's being stolen. Such illogic was bred into their bones.

"Hiram and I are worried about one of the managers, a Mr. Thomas Lane of the Los Robles Ranch, our property south-east of Los Angeles."

Hearing her tone, Jesse allowed his eyebrows to rise. "Has he been stealing from you? Surely that would be a matter for the local sheriff. Or possibly the Pinkertons?"

"Tsk. It would be if our concerns were about anything as definite as embezzlement. Our auditors have reviewed his books, and Mr. Lane's seem to be as clean as Tuesday morning linens. This is of a piece with the probity that all accounts ascribe to him. No, rather than blatant fraud, there have been problems at the Los Robles that we cannot quite identify. Certainly we've grown concerned since reading reports about the ghost rider haunting the ranch."

"The ghost rider." Jesse blinked. "By Jove, that is unusual."

"Yes, dear. However, I am afraid that matters at the Los Robles have been unusual for quite some time now." Ada permitted the smallest of frowns to mar the serenity of her countenance. "Given the shrinking market for beef cattle, we have been shifting those lands over to sheep grazing and dry farming. Although we are now making a tiny profit, it is still not what it should be. The Los Robles's operations seem to be plagued by persistent poor luck."

"Any sort of ranching is chancy, but you realize that." Jesse knew that his Aunt and Uncle viewed ranching merely as a way to bank land until it could be more profitably disposed of elsewhere; such views made them patient about the vagrancies of running stock and growing crops. "I assume that this poor luck is also peculiar."

"Peculiar. What a neat choice of a word." Ada smiled approval. "After the auditors were done, Hiram and I both reviewed the books that we were shipped. We have read the reports, and we have dispatched visitors. All our efforts have been fruitless. Everything seems unremarkable. Nonetheless, neither of us liked the feel of the situation even before these ghostly visitations." She pursed her lips. "I am disturbed."

Jesse would rather argue with a rattlesnake than with Ada's intuition. "You want me to visit Los Robles, then?"

"Yes, dear. Not as our manager but as a ranch-hand."

"Ah." Jesse considered. "So that is why you telegraphed for me to bring along working clothes and my old saddle."

"As you say. Hiram believes, and I concur, that our previous mistake was in sending men who were either conspicuous or lacked authority when distinction was, at last, needed. You are capable of passing among the local hands unremarked upon, you are our nephew, you have a good memory, and you pay attention."

When he had first come west, half-maddened by memories of the war and mourning the death of his wife, Jesse had worked as a stock-tender both to learn his new trade and to restore his shattered nerves. He still rode out much more than was expected of a manager. As a result, he was as good a ranch-hand as most of the eastern laborers who had joined the old vaqueros at herding cattle in California.

"A herd of beef cattle has recently arrived at the Los Robles by way of the Old Spanish Trail. They are supposedly being isolated to be sure they don't carry disease before we move them north to the Lone Tree Ranch, where they will be cross-bred with our local herd for the Comstock Lode market. Since these cows are of an eastern strain unfamiliar enough to justify an outsider's looking them over before they are moved on, they provide us with an opportunity."

With raised brows, Ada added, "However, I refuse to ship my nephew off to face this so-called phantom alone. Along with assembling the information you will need, I have found a companion for you." His aunt picked up the silver bell on the table by her elbow and shook it. "Are you acquainted with Mr. Wardley Bridger?"

"We have corresponded, yes, but we have not met." Bridger was yet another of his uncle and aunt's employees. He was the foreman whose ranch-hands trained the horses that the Giffords bred down by Santa Barbara on the twelve thousand or so acres of the Playa Negra. Jesse had purchased two excellent studs from him.

"Kathleen," Ada said to the parlormaid who was bobbing a curtsey, "Would you please fetch Mr. Bridger from Mr. Gifford's office? Ask him to bring along the ledger that he is studying as well." When the maid had retreated, Ada said, "Mr. Bridger is a very competent man and quite capable of assuming the guise of a wandering laborer. More important for your task, he has been in this state since 'forty-seven and so is familiar with the local customs and superstitions."

Jesse wondered how much an acquaintance with Mexican and Indian tall tales would help in uncovering fraud. However, it would be wise to have company, and Bridger was a canny fellow if his letters truly evinced his personality. At least the man would be able to convincingly portray a traveling vaquero; Ada would have written him, too, about bringing along both kit and saddle on the coastal steamer to San Francisco—

"Mr. Bridger, mum."

The dreadful possibility seemed to gallop into Jesse's brain right along with the parlormaid's words. It was with no real surprise that he looked up to see his carnal companion of the previous night standing in the morning room doorway with a thick leather ledger tucked under his arm and a bemused expression upon his weathered features. Only the harsh training of bloody years kept Jesse's dismay off of his own face.

 

II — Two Days Behind the Mast

 

Jesse shut the ledger hard enough to stir the smoky air. Above them, the nine years of accumulated spider webs that gave the Cobweb Palace its name swayed gently. The proprietor felt that spiders were lucky. The patron confronted by a spider might or might not agree. "I assume that our leaving the steamer before San Pedro would have something to do with obtaining mounts."

"Well, there are horses a-plenty at the Playa Negra, but given what Mrs. Gifford said to me about due speed, I can't see her being happy with our taking the time to ride all the way down from north of Santa Barbara to Los Robles." Bridger shook his head while smiling, a rather mild reaction to Ada. "Not to mention, Playa horses are mostly broken to leverage bits these days so that an Easterner can ride one without destroying his mount's mouth." He didn't have to tell Jesse that a true California cattle-herder would no more use a bar bit in preference to a spade bit than he would throw a lasso rather than a riata or call himself a cowboy rather than a vaquero. Such alternatives were for folks from back east, such as Texans.

Bridger continued, "I know a man outside of San Buenaventura – the farmers are calling it Ventura these days – who always has a few mustang colts training to spade. He was one of the old ranchero vaqueros, and he has hands as light as a pair of hummingbirds. If we're riding into a mystery, I'd rather do it atop a good horse, and he'll probably loan us a pair of fine ones." He had pronounced "vaqueros" as a Mexican would, rather than saying "backeroos," as most eastern stock-tenders did. Jesse was pleased: white men without any Spanish were more likely than most to treat the colored natives like dogs. Having seen the results of such foolishness during the late Rebellion, Jesse avoided it.

"First-rate thinking," he said. "The ride down El Camino Real from Ventura to Los Robles should be enough to confuse our back trail."

"The trip will take a few days, depending on how the weather holds. We'll need to keep watch for bandits." Picking up his steam beer, Bridger took a long draught. Then, setting down the stein, he asked, "Are you otherwise satisfied with our arrangements, Mr. Putnam?"

By his tone, Bridger was not talking about the stash of money that they would carry, nor the letters of introduction for emergencies, nor even the quality of their horses. How Bridger could bear referring to that Barbary Coast boardinghouse bedroom, though—

For the first time since they had left Rincon Hill, Jesse forced himself to look Bridger in the eyes. After a silence that was probably shorter than it felt, Bridger smiled in the gentle way that he had. Heartened, Jesse said, "If I have been being at all unmannerly, I apologize. Sometimes, Mr. Bridger, it is hard to speak with a man more honest and courageous than one's self."

"More honest? More courageous?" The smile widened. "Perhaps I only have less to lose."

"Perhaps. I take it that you do not mind being forced back into my company during this odd quest?"

"No, sir, I do not."

"Well, then. Since we will be leaving early tomorrow morning on the coastal steamer, would you, strictly for the sake of convenience, care to join me at the Lick House tonight?" Now it was Jesse's turn to stretch his lips. By all accounts, his usual smile was more sardonic than gentle. "There is a second bedroom in my suite. I can also ask for some food to be brought up if you do not wish to essay the dining room."

"If you're wondering about my evening dress, I don't have any. If you're wondering about the company downstairs, you are correct: I would prefer to dine upstairs." Bridger's face was solemn now, but his eyes were amused. "I take it that you don't desire to spend your last evening in San Francisco wandering the Coast?"

Jesse snorted, and then added, "I believe the complications arising from my last visit will suffice me for now."

"There is a great deal to be said for a quiet evening with a good book," Bridger agreed, his expression still grave.

Jesse ignored the hopeful warmth below his belly. "The book in question would be my collection of Shakespeare's plays, Mr. Bridger. Something about the events of the past few days has left me in the humor for perusing one of the comedies."

" _The Comedy of Errors_ might be appropriate." Bridger tilted his head. "And thinking about all those disguises and mistaken identities reminds me that you may wish to shave off your mustache tonight so that your skin will have time to darken before we arrive in Los Angeles." Jesse winced: shaving now would mean that he would have to continue shaving both aboard the coastal steamer and on the trail. Likely in response to the wince, Bridger added, "I will be sacrificing my sideburns."

"I would rather hazard the ear that you could lose than the nose that I will risk, Mr. Bridger, since a man is gifted with two of the former and only one of the latter."

"I wouldn't worry, sir. I have confidence in the steady hand of youth. In any case, by the time we arrive in Los Angeles, I will have begun a mustache to replace the one that you will be losing."

"May heaven forfend that the balance of masculine hair in this great nation should be disturbed."

"I admit that there is enough bitter sectional feeling without our causing any more fuss."

With Bridger's last statement, Jesse could not argue. "Then let's return to Lick House and a well-stropped razor. I believe I saw one of this house's mascots fall into my grog when I closed that ledger, and I'm disinclined to sample spider punch."

"A sermon in a glass," Bridger said, getting to his feet, "about the perils of hard liquor."

"I should have asked for a beer," Jesse agreed.

***

The next day dawned cool and clear. For once the steamer Oriflamme managed to depart its wharf on time, rather than a day early or late. Some of the hundreds of sea lions on the rocks inside the Golden Gate barked as they fared by, seemingly not yet bored with commenting on all the maritime traffic passing back and forth by their abode. Something about the way one of the huge bulls hitched his way across both the rocks and the smaller males reminded Jesse of his Uncle Hiram. He laughed, and went forward to rejoin Bridger.

That worthy man – it was so easy to forget that the man shared Jesse's noxious tastes – was slouched comfortably against a starboard rail out of the way of the sailors and upwind of the smoke from the stacks. He looked up and touched his hat brim as Jesse approached. "Good morning, Mr. Putnam."

"Good morning, Mr. Bridger. I'd imagine that you are more familiar with the southern coastal route than I am." Jesse had been managing lands situated across the Golden Gate, out past San Rafael.

"We should be in San Luis Obispo on the central coast tomorrow morning, and we'll lay over there while the cargo is unloaded by rowboat."

"No wharf yet?"

"No wharf yet."

"Well, maybe the locals feel compelled to discuss the matter a while longer." Bridger smiled at Jesse's jape, and Jesse returned the smile. In California, whenever men of affairs gathered together, they ended up talking about building wharfs, railways, or both. Sooner or later, Jesse had learned from family experience, a few men would break away from the herd and actually build, and then everyone else would be less pleased with the results than they would have predicted.

Bridger continued, "The rest of the trip will take a day or two, depending both on the weather and the skill of the sailors and locals when playing longshoremen. If we hew to the published schedule, we should be able to catch a boat in towards the Santa Buenaventura shore about mid-day Monday. The ship will be in San Pedro a few hours after that."

"While we will be in Los Angeles days later." The state's fascination with building wharfs and railroads wasn't irrational, only optimistic.

Another passenger came to the rail beside them and lit a cheroot. Jesse was a little surprised to see Bridger straighten from his comfortable slouch and move upwind. "You don't smoke, Mr. Bridger?"

"I was brought up in Hancock, Massachusetts, at the Shaker community there," Bridger said. "They abjured tobacco, strong spirits, and the generative exercise, and one of those strictures stuck with me."

He must have been one of the orphans that the Shakers took in to raise in their odd faith. Jesse was intrigued, but the California taboo against asking a man about his Eastern past was very strong. Instead he changed the subject. "I thought about the reports from Los Robles last night."

Bridger made an encouraging noise. He had propped himself against another, less crowded, section of railing.

"I'm proceeding from the assumption that nothing supernatural is involved since I have never been a man for spiritualism."

"Well enough."

"Instead I thought that our ghost might be a bandit up to no good or perhaps one of the local Indians wandering about."

For the first time, Bridger's smile was dry. "Take my word for it, a local Indian wouldn't be wrapping himself in black clothing and white sheeting; he'd be selling the spare clothes and sheeting to spend the proceeds on square meals and bad liquor. Not that there are many Indians left. Between disease, drink, fighting, and being hunted out, they are fast disappearing from the region. As for the Mexicans, that wouldn't be their way. And wherein lies the profit for a bandit?"

"In that case, someone must be trying to scare the residents of the ranch. But, whew, what a way to go about the job. By all reports, none of the hands seem much upset, which accords with your opinions."

"A woman in white or a giant tarantula might upset them, but a rider in bedclothing is just loco."

"Mr. Lane's written account is remarkably calm, too, but his wife departed the ranch just after the rider first appeared."

"I missed that amidst all the copied-over notes and accounts."

"She's visiting her mother in Los Angeles."

Bridger looked out to sea. "That might be due to the ranch's troubles, that might be fear of the ghost, or that might be only a visit."

"Or that might be some mixture of the troubles, the ghost, and a visit. My late wife—" Jesse stopped dead. Bridger held his peace, extending to Jesse the same privacy about the past that he had been extended. Jesse gathered himself and continued, "My late wife spent a great deal of the time while I was away to war visiting her relatives. When a woman has reason to fear, she seems to welcome company."

"There's no sense in judging another man's marriage from a distance," Bridger said, and turned his head to quirk a smile at Jesse. "We'll be in Los Angeles soon enough. Perhaps we can find some reason to speak with Mrs. Lane."

"As for the rest," Jesse frowned, "as my Aunt implied, the accounts certainly balance. And if Mr. Lane truly has all the virtues imputed to him, he is ready to be uplifted as a Romish saint. All that can be said against him is that, although he never makes ignorant decisions, somehow, he never makes the best ones, either. You know the Southland. Are his purchases disadvantageous?"

"No, but not advantageous, either. The merchant-broker he uses in Los Angeles is not one I'd choose. And he rarely buys or sells at the best time, either."

"Lane's commercial choices are too consistent: not bad, rarely good, but rather almost always mediocre. Given that, I cannot bring myself to believe the man is merely a fool."

"I think we've learned what we can without eyeing the local layout ourselves." Bridger pointed a thumb towards the expanse of blue swells stretching out towards the horizon. "Just now we might as well enjoy our journey. Pleasant not to be wallowing through bad weather for a change."

"True." Jesse's mind leapt back towards the boardinghouse bedroom again, but he yanked it away, hard. "I believe that I will best benefit from this sunshine by sitting out on deck. At least, I'll benefit if, for once, I can get my rawhide to cooperate."

Tilting his head in inquiry, Bridger asked, "Oh? What are you braiding, a riata?"

"If you can call it that. A senior hand got me started braiding when I was learning the cattle trade. But I still have a while to go before I'll finish anything that I'd use to rope a cow. Right now, it's a way to keep my hands busy."

"A man has to start somewhere. Just now I'm working on a bosal. There's always a use for more hackamores when you break horses."

Jesse considered. He and Bridger did need to give the appearance of men who'd spent time together. "Could I prevail upon you to check the tightness of my knotwork?"

For some reason, Bridger seemed faintly amused. But his tone was friendly when he said, "It would be my pleasure."

After visiting the cabin below, they found an out-of-the-way coil of ship's rope and settled in. Bridger untied and rolled out an old flour sack that had been neatly re-sewn into a pouch and removed from it well-worn tools that showed signs of loving care. Then he reached over to take Jesse's length of four-strand braided rawhide and ran it through his fingers. "Well, sir, this isn't as bad as you lead me to believe. You have the makings of a passable throwing rope here."

Flattered, not wanting to make a fuss, Jesse said, "You'd better call me Jesse, Mr. Bridger. Putnam's too easy to recognize and 'sir'—" He trailed off before he could say that he wasn't a Federal officer any more, and hadn't earned "sir" in any other way.

Not looking up from the half-done riata he was slowly inspecting, Bridger said, "I hope you aren't brooding again, Jesse. That's not good for a man." He turned the running loop, the honda, of the rope over in his hands and said, "Haven't you ever had to work with someone you'd gone whoring with?"

Able to decipher Bridger's careful words, able to speak about the unspeakable if he didn't have to meet the man's eyes, Jesse said, "No. Before the late conflict I had friends and then I was courting. Afterwards, my wife died, and I came to California. You know what I've been doing since that time."

Bridger nodded. "Maybe it's good that we met, then." He looked up. "Best call me Wardley instead of Bridger. It's my first name, so I'll answer to it." He looked back down. "You could use a fancier knot here to keep your next honda tighter. I'll show you one of these days if you like."

"Yes, thank you."

With a smile, Bridger handed back the rope. He picked up his own rawhide strings and a jar of some home-made grease that would soften them to a pliancy where they could be braided, and got to work. The air around them was loud with the engine noise and the sounds of waves, birds, and the other passenger's conversation. Jesse and Bridger, though, worked in silence.

 

III — Concerning the Ever-Present Perils of Overland Travel

 

"I believe that I have lost my heart. This boy is as easy a mount as I ever could desire." Jesse had barely twitched the fingers of his left hand and his new gelding had slowed. Carro, a dun gelding, might not be as large or long-legged as some Eastern breeds were, but he took his spade bit and carried it as gently as a farmwife toted eggs to market. Jesse yearned to try tossing a riata from Carro's back. For an Easterner, Jesse was a good roper and he could already tell that Carro would make him a better one.

"You hold your hand well." Bridger had picked out a grulla mare called Misteria for himself. Her name seemed appropriate to their task, and the mare was elegant for a mustang.

Jesse smiled. "You don't need to haul away on this fellow, unlike some of the iron-mouthed brutes I had beneath me during the Rebellion. Not that I blame them: it took a certain temperament to face the cannons. But I doubt that I would be riding Carro now if you and your friend hadn't been satisfied with how I've amended my rein-work out here in California."

Some might have found it presumptive of a seller to judge the riding skills of a prospective buyer, but Jesse approved. Even the fastest-working vaqueros needed many months to break a good mustang all the way to a spade bit, and that sort of labor was not to be thrown away by some ham-fisted fool. Every Yankee instinct Jesse had rebelled at the thought of the waste.

Bridger said, "Kind of you to pay for Miss Misteria from our funds. She'll do well up on the Playa."

"That sort of purchase is what our money is for, as far as I'm concerned. I'm merely grateful that Mr. Quintero was willing to sell, given how much I dislike borrowing horses." Borrowed horses reminded Jesse of taking remounts off of the regimental string only to have them shot dead beneath him a few hours later. "Had you ridden with him in the past?"

"Yes, in some of the last big cattle drives up the Central Valley to the gold fields. Back in '53 and '54, that would have been."

Jesse turned to quickly glance at Bridger as Carro reached a level stretch of the road and shifted his gait. Bridger was smiling slightly as if he could hear the question caught on the tip of Jesse's tongue. There had been something about Mr. Quintero's attitude towards Bridger— But you couldn't ask that question about a man whose grandsons had been mucking out his stables even as you talked with him. At least, Jesse couldn't ask that question, especially when he'd then eaten and slept under the man's own roof.

Bridger didn't seem inclined to herd along the conversation. He fell silent, giving the slopes around them the attention that they demanded. The greened-over brush and tall grasses of spring could also conceal danger, and the lengthening shadows of afternoon made hiding that much easier. Even along this route, traversed at frequent intervals by riders, carts, and stagecoaches, brigands would occasionally cause trouble. There were still a few grizzlies in these mountains as well, although the ranchers and farmers had been poisoning them, and cougars could be a positive nuisance.

They had left Santa Buenaventura early that morning but traveled slowly, spending time getting acquainted with their new horses. Since he and Bridger were supposed to be simple, if senior, hands, it would look odd for them to have both recently changed mounts; they needed to appear as if they'd had their steeds for ages. Jesse had assumed that Bridger would ride like a centaur, as most horse-breakers did, but he had worried about his own ability to carry off this deception before he'd spent the day on Carro. As well as Jesse could judge on such short acquaintance, he wouldn't have to worry about any spooking or shying at the first whiff of grizzly bear or human blood. Carro seemed to be as placid as Bridger.

If Jesse had needed confirmation of his new horse's temperament, he got it late that afternoon when they stopped to ease their legs and let the horses graze for a few minutes. Jesse walked away from the dirt road towards the chaparral at the edge of a ravine. There he halted by a thicket of entangled manzanita and California holly, enjoying the familiar, hawthorn-like scent even as he unbuttoned his trousers.

From down amidst the deadwood at the roots of the manzanita he heard a noise like a dried gourd shaken fast by bony fingers. Jesse stilled, moving only his eyes. He could see the diamond-shaped head. It was a rattler, barely an arm's length away from where he stood, and rattlers were mean this early in spring. The snake coiled onto itself, its head and upper body rearing back into an s-shaped loop, its tail still buzzing: five feet long if it was an inch.

The seconds crept by. With care, quite slowly, Jesse tried to step backwards. The snake's head shifted. Jesse leapt. There was the sound of a shot. Jesse hit dirt.

He rolled over, away, and was quickly back up onto his feet. "Dead?" From the corner of his eye he could see Carro, undisturbed by the buzz, the shot, or even the whiff of black powder, raise his head from cropping bunchgrass at the sound of a human voice.

"Yes," Bridger said, gaze directed towards the snake. His Remington Army revolver was still out, but his voice was even and his hand was steady as he holstered. "Best to be sure." Approaching the rattlesnake warily, he prodded the now-still body with a long stick he had scooped up off the ground. "Do you want the skin?"

Even after they were cut off, the heads could still bite when the snakes were fresh dead. "Leave him, if you would. Lord knows, there are enough of the creatures around."

"He'd dress out at about five and a half feet, large but not a record," Bridger said. He shook his head. "I'm sorry about risking that shot, Mr. Putnam, but I wasn't sure that he wasn't going to try for another strike."

Jesse didn't let his reaction at hearing that the snake had actually struck appear on his face. "Jesse, Mr. Bridger. Given that you are able to save my life, I think you can remember to call me Jesse."

The stillness on Bridger's face yielded a little. "As you say, Jesse." His eyes shifted down and quickly up again; his expression warmed into amusement. Jesse realized that his trousers were unbuttoned.

After a sigh, he said, "So much for discretion. If anyone needs me, I'll be standing out in clear view, pissing by the road."

Bridger laughed. Given the circumstances, Jesse didn't care. But he also took note of how proficient Bridger was with a firearm. Shooting a moving snake with a revolver was very hard, but Bridger's bullet had hit the rattler not far below the neck.

It took Jesse a while longer to wonder where Bridger had been looking, to see the rattler so soon.

***

They camped well off the road that afternoon, next to a depression beneath some canyon oaks. These few months of the year, the hollow held a small, spring-fed pool. A stone-lined fire pit and the trampled-back brush gave mute evidence that they weren't the first riders to overnight here. Once, only a few years back, any traveler could have expected hospitality from the scattered ranchers and farmers, but that custom was giving way as the population increased. Jesse didn't mind camping out in this fine weather, though. Wood wasn't too hard to gather, and he had a fire built by the time Bridger had finished tending the horses and then hobbled them.

They both had sniffed the water with care before allowing the horses to drink, so Jesse had no hesitation in using it to refill the canteens and add to the pot. He cooked up some beans and bacon to wrap in the tortillas they'd brought along from Ventura and then boiled the coffee. As he worked, he caught glimpses of Bridger moving around the fire, stowing their gear and tack, and then kicking a few rocks out of the way before he sat down against his saddle to clean his revolver. By the time that task was done and they'd both eaten, the sun had set.

"You shoot well," Jesse at last said.

"Back in the 'forties and 'fifties we had a deal to shoot at: Grizzlies, bandits, and each other. Of the three, my fellow miners were the most dangerous creatures. It helped a lone prospector to have a reputation of being good with a gun. I still practice almost every day."

Given implied permission by this opening, Jesse asked, "You were on the Mother Lode, then? How did you end up as a vaquero?"

Bridger shrugged. "I came west hoping for land, not gold, and I should have held on to that dream. Instead I was swept up by the booming about the Mother Lode. After I lost most of my first poke in San Francisco, I decided that I wasn't made for riches. It wasn't hard to get employment in those years, what with everyone still rushing out to the diggings. Since I'd helped tend our stock at Hancock, working with cattle seemed like a natural step to take. By '52 I had drifted down to the southern ranchos, and I came along with the Playa Negra when it was sold to the Giffords in '64. Mine hasn't been an exciting life."

Jesse snorted at this obvious tarradiddle, but only said "I have had all together enough excitement in my life."

"You were in the Union Army." Bridger made the words a statement and not a question.

"With the First Massachusetts Cavalry. Now, that was an exciting life." There was a great deal more trouble than excitement in war, and even more trouble had arrived after the surrender: his wife's death, his fleeing west from the family business, and his perverse desires coiling ever tighter, ready to strike. Even now, looking at Bridger, he could feel the want thrumming all the way from the tips of his fingers down deep into his groin. How could the man seem so calmly contented? What was behind that placid face?

There were few things more foolish than misbehaving in the so-called wilderness, Jesse knew. Nothing stood out in near-empty territory like a campfire before it was banked, and anything that a man got up to while silhouetted by its light could be observed by anyone wandering by in the dark. It did not pay to be distracted when there might be danger. That was simple wisdom.

Jesse found that he didn't care about simple wisdom.

Bridger's expression lost its calm in the shifting firelight as Jesse's knees hit the dirt in front of him. However, Jesse had both hands on Bridger's fly before the man could start talking again. After that, a bleak stare was enough to keep Bridger's fine lips shut until Jesse's hands could rub what he wanted beneath the rough, twill fabric. Up and down once, up and down twice, and he saw Bridger's head tilt back and his eyes half-close. One belt-buckle and five buttons later, Jesse could gauge Bridger's reaction more directly than by his expression.

He waited until he'd worked the cock in his hand into hardness to ask, "Keep going?" It was a hell of an inquiry, given what he was doing.

"That's not a fair question, Jesse," Bridger got out.

"You're right." Jesse looked at what he was holding, and leaned forward. He wanted to kiss; instead, he slowly, deliberately licked the head of Bridger's cock.

"Oh," Bridger said, and followed that up with the strangled sound of a man swallowing more words as Jesse worked around the shaft. Profanity, most likely: as near as Jesse had been able to tell during these past few days, the man just did not curse.

His mouth against what he wanted, Jesse said, "I won't ask next time." Parting his lips, he pushed them slowly over Bridger's cock, dragging them along the skin, savoring the growing hardness, the taste of salt and skin, and the feeling of life.

As Jesse worked over him for long minutes, head moving up and down, mouth and tongue busy, he could feel Bridger's hands moving across Jesse's back and shoulders as if the man didn't know where to take hold. At last Bridger set his hands against the earth behind him, braced himself, and let Jesse have his way. When he was ready to spend he stirred again, but Jesse squeezed Bridger's thighs hard through his trousers, stilling him, if not his cock. Bridger's seed was bleach-bitter but Jesse swallowed anyhow. Somehow the taste seemed right.

When he pulled away and looked at Bridger's cock, gleaming with spit, still mostly hard, he knew that he was smiling. He didn't know what the smile would look like to Bridger. Leaning forward, grasping the tip of the cock with his fingers, he said, "There you are."

"Your turn?"

Jesse let go, startled. "You would—" He paused and licked his lips. Then he said, "No."

Without another word, Bridger's eyes drifted downwards.

"That's not what I want, no." Before Bridger could say anything, Jesse started unbuttoning himself. The touch of his own hand made him hungry for Bridger's mouth, but he added, "I'll do this."

"Okay," Bridger said mildly. He had both arms resting now on his folded knees, and he didn't seem the least bit concerned that his now-soft cock still hung loose from his trouser fly.

Jesse's voice continued on its own, "You could watch."

Bridger raised his eyebrows, visible even in the fire light, but the words were serene as he said again, "Okay." He watched Jesse working himself with calm attention, his gaze focused on Jesse's hands. Only when Jesse was done, crouching before him shuddering slightly, did Bridger lean forward and reach out a hand to smooth down Jesse's cowlick. "I hope you enjoyed that."

"Would I have done what I did if I didn't enjoy it?"

"Maybe." Still calm, Bridger reached for his canteen, and then pulled out his handkerchief before he started cleaning himself off. Jesse knelt for a moment, watching, before he shook off his surprise at the single word of Bridger's response and got up to do the same.

By the time he was done, Bridger was already unstrapping his bedroll. "You want to bank the fire? We can take turns keeping watch."

"No." Jesse hesitated and then repeated, "No."

Bridger nodded. "Good night, then." He removed his hat and boots, unwrapped his neckerchief, undid his belt, took off his coat and vest, and rolled himself up in his blankets. Even before Jesse had finished tending the fire, Bridger was asleep.

Jesse stayed awake for another half an hour, looking at such stars as he could see this close to the full moon and listening to the coyotes yipping up in the mountains. He was as tense as on the night before a battle. But he knew it wasn't any ghost that he feared.

 

IV — Cow-Town of the Angels

 

"This place has grown a lot since the last time I was here; about five years ago, that was," Bridger said. "There are quite a few two-storied structures now, and they're employing more bricklayers."

"Do you think that anyone will remember you?"

"I don't believe so. We passed through on our way to drive some horses north from a bankrupt rancho. I was only one more hand: nothing memorable." Jesse glanced over at Bridger and then decided to hold his peace. Either Bridger was unduly modest or keeping to their assumed roles: neither possibility was worth taxing him over. Jesse turned his attention back to the buildings along the roadside.

Los Angeles in no way deserved its lovely setting on this broad plain between the mountains and the Pacific, Jesse decided. Even in the rainy season the streets were dusty, the older adobe and single-story frame buildings were grubby, and just now, as they approached the small business district, they were riding around a couple of locals rolling around in the dirt together as they fought.

"Do you want to sit down to a proper meal?" he asked Bridger. Behind them, a woman had run out of a house and was scolding the quarreling pair in lively, carrying Spanish.

"You're interested in finding a restaurant?"

It took a moment for Jesse to answer, distracted as he was by a Spanish curse that he had not previously heard. "I was considering that, yes. Given how quickly this trip has gone, I thought we might even stay in town overnight if we could find respectable lodgings."

Bridger grinned. "By all accounts, that would give us a choice between the Bella Union Hotel and the Bella Union Hotel."

Jesse considered the coincidence of names between the hotel and the melodeon in which he and Bridger had met. Then he considered the prospect of a large bed with good springs and clean linens. Finally, he considered what he had done the previous night. Changing subjects, he said, "If there is any respectable way to obtain an introduction to her, we should certainly see if we can speak with Mrs. Lane."

"We could ask her for directions, saying that we'd heard tales in town about a masked bandit on the trail between Los Robles and Los Angeles."

"Asking her for directions might do for an excuse to speak with her, but we will need an excuse to actually find her first." Jesse waved towards a saloon bar that they were passing called Rowen's Place. At least the building wasn't decaying like many of the older, adobe structures were in this town. "Shall we have a drink?"

Bridger nodded.

Inside the place was clean and crammed with men taking their luncheons in a glass. Jesse and Bridger crowded up to the bar between a seemingly sporting Irishman regaling the barkeep with a long anecdote about running races along the proposed railroad route to San Pedro and a tall character in a worn-at-the-elbows sack suit trading smutty stories with some laborer friends.

After the barkeep disentangled himself long enough to take their order, Jesse asked for a grog and Bridger for a beer. When both were provided, Jesse inquired after the whereabouts of Mrs. Lane.

"Mrs. Lane?" The barkeep shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't recognize the lady's name."

Hearing the barkeep, the tall man to Jesse's left turned and spoke. There was a strong note of the South about his words. "If it's a woman you want, you should try Nigger Alley. Of course, you might have to settle for a Celestial along there." A few of the other patrons laughed.

Jesse tried to keep the scowl off of his face. He failed. He knew his reaction was foolish, but the Abolitionist dinner guests of his childhood had left him with a strong distaste for the common name for a Negro.

Perhaps sensing Jesse's irritation, Bridger asked, "You're speaking of the old Calle de los Negros?"

The tall fellow's eyes narrowed. "You don't seem to like our American street names, sir. Are you, by any chance, a bluebelly?"

"No, sir, that would have been me," Jesse said, keeping his voice soft. "Do you have some difficulty with the notion of a man having served honorably during the Late Conflict? As for myself, I take pride in my actions." Next to him, Bridger faintly smiled, but he had set down his beer and his hand was on his belt, resting close to his holster. Jesse added, "Thank you for your helpful suggestion, though."

The fellow eyed him, curled his lip, and returned to his drink and his companions. Without another word, Jesse drained his own grog, got up, and left. He didn't have to look to know that Bridger would follow him.

As they went along the plank sidewalk towards the hitching post where they had tied their horses, Jesse heard a cough and whirled, his hand dropping down towards his revolver. The Irishman from the bar raised his hands pacifistically. "Now, then. Now, then. This establishment is a terrible one for the secesh customers, but the liquor here is good. I hope you weren't offended." His gaze moved briefly over to the carbine Jesse had holstered on Carro and then back to Jesse's face.

His humor restored by the glance, Jesse said, "Not so offended, sir, that I intend to return inside with a Spencer carbine."

The Irishman shrugged. "Not so long ago, a Southern gentleman was going from store to store asking for a pistol so that he could shoot another fellow with whom he was debating just such a regional matter."

"And did he find his pistol?" Bridger asked.

"Oh, that he did, but the other fellow recovered well enough afterwards that the Committee didn't string the Colonel up from a lamppost. This is Los Angeles, sir." He nodded, agreeing with himself. "It pays to be cautious. For example, your new acquaintance from the saloon is a friend of those lads from El Monte. They've been mostly quiet this past year, but they've always loved a good quarrel with a Union man."

Jesse snorted. "We weren't interested in quarreling, only in directions to the residence of Mrs. Lane."

"To Mrs. Lane's? Why, she lives with her mother, the Widow Taberman, on Fort Street over by First." He smiled, probably at Jesse's quizzical expression, and added, "Sure, and don't they sell hats for fine ladies out of their front parlor? There's not a pretty woman in this town who doesn't like a fancy hat, and I like a pretty woman."

***

Mrs. Lane was a lot like her mother's house, giving a strong impression of neat and enduring respectability combined with no particular pretenses to beauty. She had obviously passed her twentieth year and had mouse-brown hair, blue eyes, and the sort of subdued freckles that went along with always wearing a bonnet while still spending time outdoors. Her features were of the hewn-out kind that Jesse was used to seeing in the northern parts of New England. Jesse knew that he was not a great judge of female pulchritude, but Mrs. Lane struck him as strong and handsome rather than pretty. Her dress was nice, though: the cotton was sprigged with periwinkles and neatly sewn.

To Jesse's surprise, he and Bridger had been escorted into a small, sunny front room with a few well-stuffed chairs, on one of which Mrs. Lane had seated herself. Usually vaqueros were barely tolerated inside the main house, let alone allowed into the morning room, part of the women's domain. He glanced around at the rag rug, the crowded bookshelf, the wicker basket of embroidery, and the wall hung with an etching of The Stag in the Glen along with several daguerreotypes. There was also a small fireplace, which looked to be rarely used. Jesse was glad. Women around open flames made him fidget, and he needed to concentrate on sounding like a straightforward stock-tender as he said, "Thank you for having the kindness to speak with us, ma'am."

"Not at all, Mr. Godfrey. You have questions about the route between here and Los Robles?"

"Yes, ma'am. Wardley and I heard that there might be a bandit active along the trail."

"No bandit, no, not that I've heard." Her gaze was level. "Some of the hands were speaking of a ghost before I began my visit here."

Jesse looked at Bridger; Bridger at Jesse. It was Bridger who asked, "A ghost?"

"Yes." Her hands pleated her skirt for a moment before they stilled. "Ridiculous, I know, but some employees have left the ranch: one or two of the shepherds, I believe. They can be superstitious, given how much time they spend alone."

Jesse let himself look dubious. "Sounds like a bandit to me, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Nonsense. No one has been robbed, not even Mr. Lane when riding back from town with the month's wages."

"Maybe it's a fellow who wants a job real bad?" Bridger hazarded. "Someone who's replaced one of the hands who left?"

"Perhaps. In any case, there is certainly a mischief-maker at work, so I thought that you should be warned." She paused and then her chin firmed. "I am surprised that you knew my direction to ask me about this rider."

"We got your whereabouts from a fellow in a saloon bar, ma'am." It wasn't hard to feign embarrassment: Jesse was a little embarrassed now that he considered the brief argument. "An Irish fellow." If he was creating the impression that he and Bridger had been gossiping about Los Robles at the bar, so much the better. Common gossip was less suspicious than uncommon knowledge.

"Mr. Flannigan." She said the name with an exasperated certainty that didn't demand a response. Then she added, tone somehow both brisker and relieved, "Do you need directions as well, or do you have them?" Jesse wondered for a moment if she'd been thinking that they'd gotten directions from someone else than Flannigan.

"We wouldn't mind being sure, ma'am." She nodded. Jesse continued, "Ride out about fifteen miles along El Camino until we see the third range of hills to the east, and then look for the trail marked by two thick oak stakes with an old ox yoke raised between them. Follow that trail east through the low pass and into the valley beyond, and we'll see the ranch buildings as we top the second ridge."

"You are correct. The trail is well defined and smooth enough to get a cart along. You won't have to worry about wildfire during this season, but be wary of the hill streams on the property. If it rains, a few of them can run stronger than you'd imagine from their looks. And, as you likely know, the rattlers are out."

"Thank you, ma'am," Jesse said. "We just wanted to be sure about what we'd heard. Tall tales can cause problems."

"I esteem honesty." For a worried moment, Jesse thought that she was somehow referring to his and Bridger's false pretenses. Then, seeing her distant gaze, he realized that she was thinking of her own concerns.

"Would you like us to bring along any messages to Mr. Lane, ma'am?" Bridger asked. From his attitude, you'd never suspect him of any but the kindest of motivations.

Her eyes focused: Bridger had all her attention. "No," she said, the word abrupt. Then she said, "If I have any messages for my husband, I will convey them myself when I decide the time is ripe. That day may come soon, but it isn't today." Her tone was not rude but it unmistakably ended the conversation.

"Thank you, ma'am," Jesse said again, and "Thank you ma'am," Bridger echoed. They both put their hats back on.

Since there didn't seem to be a parlormaid, they went ahead of Mrs. Lane to the front door. As they passed, from behind a closed door across the hall they could hear a murmur of feminine voices, one older, two younger: Jesse imagined that the merits of wearing ostrich feathers versus peacock feathers on one's hat were being debated. Mrs. Lane held the front door open for them and they both touched their hats to her before they went down the adobe-brick front walk to the street and their horses.

They'd mounted and ridden away before Jesse said, "Mrs. Lane's not visiting her mother for her mother's sake."

"No," Bridger said. "Although she doesn't seem to be afraid of the ghost rider, either."

"Did you notice the paler patch on the wallpaper among the daguerreotypes?

"Yes."

"Would you wager against a picture of Mr. Lane being the one that someone took down?"

"No," Bridger said, and smiled faintly as he added, "and not just because the Shakers also abjured gambling. There's something worldlier at work here than a phantom."

"I agree."

Bridger said, "The moon will be near full tonight."

"Let's partake of a quick meal and then start out to Los Robles. I'm curious to see if we will meet this ghost rider."

Bridger didn't reply, but Jesse could still sense his agreement.

 

V — On the Nocturnal and Diurnal Meditations of Ranch-Hands

 

As they rode southeast from Los Angeles, the day first warmed into late afternoon and then cooled as the sun sank low and shadows stretched towards the east from the low coastal hills. Jesse found the countryside soothing. A man could see quite a distance across the patchwork of grasses, cactus, and sage, with only a few low-growing willows around the seasonal watercourses to interrupt the view. Even this far inland from the ocean, the hills to the east were still lush from the recent rains with scattered canyon oaks adding darker olive accents to the dominant light green of the landscape. To either side of the road the countryside was splattered with the yellow of mustard blossoms. Off in the distance to the west, white dots moved down across a hillside: a herd of sheep most likely chivied by some Basque shepherd, Bridger told Jesse.

"Are you putting any of the Playa Negra acreage into sheep?" Jesse asked. He wasn't fond of the animals himself, given how they managed to be both stubborner and stupider than cows. They were harder on the land than well-tended cattle, too.

"No. I believe Mr. Williams – my manager – wants to run sheep but he hasn't gotten approval for his plans from San Francisco yet."

Jesse was beginning to hear the nuances in Bridger's calm tones. "You disagree with his plans?"

"The ranch does need to diversify, but sheep are just as vulnerable to drought as cattle are. We can water the horses, but too many cattle or sheep will overwhelm even our hidden springs." He turned his head to smile at Jesse. "The Giffords are good at finding prime territory with subtle virtues." Turning back to scan the land around him he said, "Water's what matters out here, not pretty views or winter-lush fields. If the transport was better around the Playa, we could make a good profit some years by dry-cropping wheat or corn, but there'd be no way to ship that much grain in bulk. We won't see a railroad for years in Santa Barbara County, if ever."

"You're not displeased." This time Jesse wasn't asking a question.

"I loved this country when I came to it, but everything I mooned over is changing fast. When the railroads come, everything will change faster still."

"' _Dis es ton auton potamon ouk an embaiês_.'" Bridger grinned at Jesse's unthinking assumption that he would understand Greek, and Jesse hastily added a translation. "'You never step in the same river waters twice.' Nonetheless, I grasp your concern." Jesse turned to gaze ahead, considering for a minute. "If I was managing the Playa Negra, I'd still run the horses in the hills but also find some crop that could tolerate a long ship to market and plant that on the bottom acres. This land reminds me of Italy or Spain; maybe Mediterranean crops could resist the droughts. Olives, perhaps?"

"The old mission fathers in Santa Barbara grew grapes and citrus. So do the German Utopians over in Anaheim."

"Raisins, oranges, lemons: they could be shipped." Jesse stared out across the plains. There was a patch of late blooming wildflowers that the sheep had somehow missed, waving gently in the inshore breeze. "Nice country around here, if nasty citizenry. I had heard that there were a lot of Confederate sympathizers in this part of the state."

"I know you read in the ledger notes that Mr. Lane was originally from Maryland before he moved north to Maine." There was no emphasis in Bridger's voice but there did not have to be any. Maryland had been held in the Union only by force. Jesse might need to mind his manners. He didn't take offense: he had gotten up on his high horse in that saloon bar, after all, and almost provoked a useless and possibly dangerous fight.

Jesse said, "His lead hand is a Marylander, too, if I remember aright, and some of the hands are from south of the Mason-Dixon. But I doubt that Lane himself will be the sort to reopen old wounds or my uncle would not have hired him. After all, Uncle Hiram has to work with the man if only at a distance. We Giffords and Putnams were all strong abolitionists and are still staunch Republicans." He could hear the dry note in his own voice as he continued, "I've always thought our efforts in that direction were our way of atoning for the sins that founded our fortune. Best for us to balance the ledgers before committing new sins that pile the greenbacks even higher."

Although Bridger chuckled, something about him seemed thoughtful, too. Not really wanting to know what the man was thinking, Jesse was relieved to observe, as they topped a gentle rise, that the gate to Los Robles was about a half-mile down the far side of the slope to their left. As always out west, the so-called gate seemed strangely isolated with no fence around it, but lumber was too dear and rocks too difficult to be used for miles of fencing. If anyone ever solved the fence problem matters might change, but just now ranch boundaries were for settling water rights, not for strictly confining herds.

When they entered the first range of hills on Los Robles, they also lost the setting sun. Their way wended up a canyon into the shadows of the oak groves. Off to one side Jesse thought he could hear running water: probably one of the creeks of which Mrs. Lane had spoken. There were no other sounds of anything moving through the brush, aside from the usual stirring of birds and small beasts. None of the ranch's sheep herds grazed here just now, although droppings and trampled undergrowth showed signs of their recent passage.

"Do you want to set up camp? Or we could keep watch up there," Bridger said, indicating a small, flat-topped hill to their right with his chin. The hill was crowned by some sort of rocky outcrop and it looked like it might command a view of both the trail and the surrounding countryside.

Jesse said, "Let's climb up there and see what we have in the way of a look-out perch."

There was a trail to the top, if one more traversed by game than men, and the brush was sparse enough across the crowning rocks that they could camp. Better still, the layers of the outcrop sloped back and away from the canyon's edge, so they wouldn't be silhouetted by moonlight if they kept low.

Shading his eyes against the sunset that was visible again from the hilltop, Jesse said, "This does seem like the only western route where our so-called ghost could ride onto the ranch at night."

"I wouldn't take a horse off-trail through this kind of brushy terrain after dark," Bridger agreed.

Jesse looked at Bridger and caught the quirk of his lips. They both knew that only a long chance would bring the ghost rider out tonight. However, ignoring opportunities didn't pay off in the long run.

Without further discussion, they clambered back downhill to care for the horses and fetch their packs. Given the tendency of horses to whicker at strange horses, Misteria and Carro had to be haltered well back from the trail, close to the small stream. Before they let the pair drink, both Bridger and Jesse checked along the stream bank with deep suspicion – sheep had a tendency to foul water sources – but found no sign of dung or carcasses in the water. The grass around the banks wasn't badly cropped, either. So, after haltering the horses, Jesse and Bridger clambered back up the trail to the hilltop in the last bit of twilight. They would keep a dark camp tonight.

Given how voices could carry in unknown terrain, they also couldn't talk much. After they finished eating a cold and quiet dinner, Jesse asked, "Do you want the first watch?" Bridger nodded agreement, and without further ado, Jesse rolled himself into his blankets and forced himself towards sleep. It was not as hard as he would have predicted. Even for a rancher used to the saddle, long rides were tiring. Meaning only to close his eyes for a minute and try to think of something relaxing, Jesse instead dozed off, to wake with Bridger's hand on his shoulder.

"Anything?" Jesse asked, sitting up, keeping the word low.

"Nothing," Bridger said, a quiet voice in the dark. Briefly, the back of his hand rested against Jesse's cheek. Before Jesse could do more than start in surprise at the intimacy, Bridger had turned away to untie his blanket roll.

It was better not to make a fuss. Jesse shifted his own blankets until he was lying prone near the edge of the outcrop, overlooking the darkness of the oaks and the pale trace of the road below. Deliberately, he left a pebble or two under his blankets where they would dig into him. Just now he needed the discomfort.

Bridger settled quickly. He was a steady sleeper who didn't snore. Jesse had plenty of undisturbed time to identify such constellations as he could see sharing the night sky with a bright moon and to slap at the occasional insect attracted to his presence. Without his braiding to distract him, he could also think. He would rather not have thought.

He liked Bridger, liked him too well given that he had known the man for less than a week. Jesse wished that he could believe this growing friendship to be soul calling to soul in the sort of rapturous spiritual fellowship he had so ardently desired when he was young. He feared, though, that his animal urges were what spurred him onward towards intimacy. Not that such rushed intimacies were Bridger's fault. The vaquero seemed a good enough sort, aside from his ease with the same thorn that stabbed Jesse. And it certainly was not Bridger's fault that Jesse still wanted him.

It was with real relief that Jesse heard the sound of a horse and rider. He crawled a bit closer to the edge of the outcrop, careful not to dislodge anything that might cascade down into the oaks below, giving them away.

He and Bridger had been right about sound carrying. Jesse could hear the horse long before he could see it. Still, the sound of hooves grew louder more quickly than Jesse night have predicted. Whoever this rider was must know the trail or he would not have dared to take his horse along at this pace so late at night, moon or no moon. And now Jesse could hear something else besides hoof beats. The rider was singing.

Jesse rolled his eyes. This wasn't their ghost, unless that supernatural worthy knew all the words to "The Bonny Blue Flag." Somehow, if that had been the case, Jesse thought one of the haunted witnesses would have mentioned ghostly inclinations towards hymnody. The rider must be a ranch-hand from Los Robles.

He only caught a quick glimpse of the rider from above. Jesse could just make out that the fellow was lanky, long, and wearing a planter's hat. The moonlight bleached out both the rider's coloring and that of his horse. He had a baritone that might have been compelling without the hindering contribution of alcohol: the last stanza had been sour as old lemon juice. There was nothing ghostly about the rider, but Jesse hoped that the fellow wouldn't meet an owl. Matters were complicated enough without any drunken accounts of ghosts born from a flurry of feathers.

Jesse kept still until the sounds of the rider faded off to the east, and the small rustlings of night animals in the brush resumed. Then he took up his watch again, only to find himself, perhaps an hour later, humming "The Bonny Blue Flag" under his breath. Annoyed, he forced himself to stop. Then, a minute or two later, he stiffened.

Bridger had every excuse to have missed the possibility, but the idea certainly should have occurred to Jesse before now. He knew perfectly well that there was more than one sort of sheet-garbed night rider out and about these days.

***

"The Klu Klux Klan?" Bridger frowned thoughtfully. "Now that you mention the notion, they might fit our description. But what would they be doing anywhere near Los Angeles?" He snorted. "When I first rode through Los Angeles in the 'fifties, there were only a handful of southern Negros in the whole town. The most famous of them was notorious for supporting the Democrats. I doubt anything has changed much since then."

"Do you remember reading about any Los Robles ranch-hands being Negros?" Jesse gently twitched the reins he held in his left hand, and Carro veered away from the patch of trailside wildflowers towards which he had been drifting.

"No, and pretty much all the cattle-tenders I've met out here have been Mexican, with a few Irish and other sorts thrown into the mix for spicing."

"My cook up north is a Negro."

"That's rare, though. Usually cooks are Chinamen."

"True." Jesse scowled. "I wish we had a sketch of this ghost. I've seen engravings of the Kluxers in both _Harper's_ and _The Police Gazette_ , and it would be useful to know how close any resemblance might be."

He caught the grin as Bridger said, "Why, Jesse. I wouldn't have thought you were a man for engravings of dance hall girls and sensational articles about brutal murderers."

"I only bother with the _Gazette_ for the sake of the athletic illustrations," Jesse retorted and then paused, stunned that the words had actually come out of his mouth.

Bridger's grin blossomed into a wide smile. He had excellent teeth. "They can be rather handsome, those boxers in their trunks and undershirts."

Jesse rode without saying anything for a while longer, and then asked, "How can you be so calm?" He was surprised to find that he sounded curious rather than craven.

"Why do you worry so?" Bridger retorted. His question did not make sense; Jesse found that he was shaking his head in confusion. Bridger continued, "You're not a fearful man, Jesse, not with your history. And you must know by now that I'd never give you away."

Jesse gnawed his lip. He'd started this conversation. Why was it that he now had nothing to say?

Bridger, on the other hand, did have more to say. "I hope it's not shame that tears at you. A man should take care, but as for shame? I'm disinclined to hang my head before anyone who'll pay to visit young girls kept in cages, or go to the sort of cribs where they spread oilskin across the foot of the bed so the client's boots won't soil the sheets. And those fellows will never see the inside of a jail or the end of a rope for what they do."

Bridger's free hand made a cutting gesture. "Even so-called virtuous men treat their wives in ways that I wouldn't treat a mule. These same paragons bad-talk the Shakers, folks more chaste with each other, kinder to each other, than their critics will ever be. No, I feel no shame before my peers." Suddenly, Bridger looked sad. "As for criticism from the All Good, maybe matters would be different if I was a pious man. I'm not."

"Such acts as we commit are also said to be unnatural," Jesse said, interested in hearing Bridger's response.

"You must have grown up in town," Bridger said. "I didn't. I grew up tending stock out in the countryside." He shook his head. "If it's unnatural, someone forgot to tell the animals. If it's inhuman, someone forgot to tell you and me. I've never understood what the fuss is all about, but then there's a lot of fussing in this world that I just don't get."

Bridger's arguments were far from flawless, but they echoed thoughts that Jesse had pondered as the years had passed by. Even as a boy, he'd seen how hard it was to take a road that one's fellows avoided. He knew that many of the unthinking truths men hewed to were false, but—

"Alas that I had your serenity," Jesse said, with a smile that was probably wry.

"I wish I had a touch of whatever stirs you so." Seeing Jesse shake his head again, Bridger said, "Maybe then I'd ride a little harder towards what I wanted. I settle down too easily."

This was the sort of talk one did not share with a new acquaintance, but it somehow seemed fitting coming from Bridger: one more sign of the intimacy towards which Jesse was stampeding almost blindly. "Mr. Bridger, my apologies. I find I can't speak of these matters any longer."

Bridger gave his usual shrug, a possible sign of the complacency he claimed. "We're almost to the ranch buildings anyhow."

"Again, alas."

"Oh?"

"I had a clever plan to divert you from our previous talk by inquiring if we really needed to worry about flooding in these hills."

"Well, I don't intend to settle down here and find out. I'm not that easy." They both laughed, and Bridger continued, "There'll be plenty of other chances to chew the cud while we're riding out to check those cows."

"True." Overly eager or not, Jesse couldn't bring himself to regret the chance for further conversation with Bridger.

 

VI — A Man May Be Measured by How He Treats the Help

 

In common with most local ranches, the adobe buildings at Los Robles didn't make many concessions to the possibility of bad weather. They were clustered together only for convenience and not for protection. Even the later, American, additions to the main house didn't have much of a pitch to the roofs, and the coat of paint atop the whitewashed adobe was a grace note, not a necessity to keep the house from dissolving back into the earth from which it had come. The only physical admissions that the locals weren't ranching in paradise were the windmill that pumped water up from what appeared to be a new well and the line of young pepper trees east of the house. One day those trees would both cast shade and break the occasional desert winds of summer.

Everything appeared well-managed. Nothing hinted at incompetence. Someone had even reused an old wooden beam as a hitching rail by clamping it onto stone pillars beneath two of the locus trees in front of the main building. Jesse and Bridger dismounted by the rail without discussion. Now, when they needed to make their presence known, was probably the only time that they would enter the house by its front door.

As they swung out of their saddles, a man came out of the house and paused on the front porch to say something to the ranch-hand who accompanied him. Then he looked up before coming over to the two of them. He was wearing a well-cut suit, if a dusty one; his vaquero's hat looked incongruous above a tie. Jesse thought that he must be Mr. Lane.

"Good morning, sir," Bridger said, removing his hat. Jesse took his hat off, too, but let Bridger speak first: as the elder of the pair of them, Bridger would normally have been senior hand.

"You fellows here for a reason?" The question wasn't hostile, only blunt.

"Yes, sir." Jesse said. He placed a restraining hand on Carro's neck since someone had planted flowers here and there around the main house. Carro was proving to be a floral opportunist, and he was neither hitched nor were his reins dangling in the trained-in message for the gelding to keep still.

Bridger added, "We're the hands from the Playa Negra, come to look over the eastern cows."

The man nodded, studying them. Then he extended a hand to Bridger and said curtly, "I'm Thomas Lane, the boss here."

Lane was a handsome man about Bridger's age, tanned dark as a Mexican and with brown hair and eyes. He was stocky, but not fat, and his handgrip was firm. As near as Jesse could judge, Lane had shed most of his Tidewater accent. With the ease of long practice, Jesse quashed his impulse to admire the man's looks at some length as Bridger said, "How do you do, sir. I'm Wardley, and this is Jesse."

"I received the telegraph about you two. Last I was informed, the herd was up Greasewood Canyon, so you might as well take the chance to get settled and eat a meal before you ride out." He turned towards the hand by the door and called out, "Sam! Show Jesse and Wardley here, to that empty room in the west wing." Then he looked back at them. "I hope you'll excuse me. The supply wagons for the sheepherders go out today and they need inspecting." With another nod, he strode away.

Bridger turned to watch him go, unabashed. Jesse, though, shook hands with Sam, who was a sun-burnt blond with the tracery of veins high across his cheeks of a man who drank hard. However, his grip was strong enough. He started off with, "Now, you boys are doing well for yourselves."

His accent confirmed his origins, which made his choice of address verge on rudeness. "Why's that?" Jesse asked.

"Most new hands have to make do with the old storage house down by the stream if they're lucky and brush huts if they aren't."

Bridger, who had joined them, shrugged. "We weren't sent to do this job because we were green hides."

"Huh," Sam said dubiously, but he guided them and the horses around the great adobe pile willingly enough.

Jesse was interested to see signs of recent construction. The ledger reports had told him that most of the west wing was fairly new, added on to the original house after the rancho had been sold to the Giffords. However, the outbuildings that they were passing now were fresh. Los Robles seemed to be walking a fine line between being profitable and being prosperous, not what he would have expected from Aunt Ada's account or the ledger's figures.

They walked along the well-trodden dirt by the side porch that stretched almost the entire length of the wing, passing the kitchen and hands' dining room, passing the wood room and laundry, and pausing by three narrow doors. Each door led to a tiny bedroom otherwise isolated from the house, Sam told them.

"This middle room is empty, but I can shift Old Miguel to free up another room." Sam said.

Jesse knew a hint when he heard one. "Wardley and I can share if you have two cots."

"You won't be left with room to breathe," Sam said in the tone of a man who was willing to be persuaded.

Bridger just grunted, and that was that. Sam led them on around the end of the wing towards the stables. When Carro and Misteria were tended, Jesse and Bridger picked up their kits and headed across the patio behind the main house. They had to veer around a couple of dogs and a cat sunning on the bricks to reach the west door of the hands' dining room. That room stretched across the entire wing from the patio back to the side porch, making it a convenient shortcut.

Inside, a pair of hands were already sitting down to an early lunch: ranch meals were often staggered on busy days. They looked up and nodded at Sam, eyed Jesse and Bridger with curiosity, and then went back to their food. Sam called out to the cook through the open door to the kitchen, "Two more for luncheon, Ying!" and kept walking.

When they got back outside, he said, "I'll leave you here. You can find me in the shearing barn when you're done eating and need directions."

"Thank you, sir," Bridger said. Jesse nodded.

"Huh," Sam said again, and then walked off towards the blacksmith's shed without elaborating.

Bridger and Jesse looked at each other. The fellow didn't seem so much suspicious as unconcerned.

"Do you think that Sam is Mr. Stockett, the lead hand?" Bridger asked.

"The Tidewater accent is right."

Skipping any more conversation that might be overheard, they went and left their belongings in the small room that they would share, stowing most of them under the single cot now in there. Then they returned to the dining room.

Within, they found seats on the wooden bench across from the two ranch-hands. Seemingly responding to the cook's instructions in Chinese, audible through the open door, a young Chinaman came in and dropped forks and knives atop the oilcloth in front of them without a word. The cook, more vocal in his own kingdom, rattled off a few more comments in his native tongue to the youngster, who disappeared into the kitchen to reappear with two loaded plates and two mugs of coffee. As the smells of cooking had portended, they were being fed mutton stew and onions with a spoonful of frijoles on the side of the plate. Jesse wasn't surprised to find that the food was better than some of what he'd eaten at Lick House.

After a few minutes of quiet chewing, one of the pair across from them looked up from neatly chasing his beans around with a slice of bread to ask, "Are you two the fellows come down from the Playa Negra?" He had an accent born somewhere on the Mississippi and a scar on his jaw that might have resulted from a brush with a bayonet. Jesse took the excuse of a full mouth to let Bridger answer.

"That's right." Bridger yanked a thumb at himself. "Wardley." He pointed a forefinger towards Jesse. "Jesse."

"I'm Floyd. How do." Floyd reached over the table to shake hands with Bridger and then extended his hand towards Jesse.

"How do you do," Jesse said, resigned. At least the fellow didn't let go his grip upon hearing the Boston tones in Jesse's speech.

"Your herd is laired up in Greasewood Canyon. We've been sending someone up there every other day or so to be sure they don't wander off into trouble." Floyd smiled. "Are you fixing to move them along north by yourselves?"

"We're only the vanguard," Jesse said. "Several fellows will be here in about a fortnight from the Lone Tree to drive them up towards the Owens valley."

"They must be some fine creatures to justify all this fuss," Floyd said.

"Well, they have very long horns, you see," Bridger said, his face straight.

"Even longer than the locals'." Floyd shook his head. "We had noticed that, I assure you."

The door to the patio opened and another cowhand came in. He was tall, blond, and vaguely familiar. His face, Jesse decided, resembled Sam's.

"Ying, you pigtailed Mongolian! How about some grub?" The voice was familiar, too. Jesse had last heard it singing. So far, speech was not an improvement.

The kitchen was silent, but the young Chinaman reappeared with another plate of food. When he placed it in front of the newcomer, he kept his distance, extending an arm to set the food where it belonged rather than bending forward. Having seen such jesting before, Jesse was fairly sure the youngster was keeping his queue out of hand's reach.

Without a word, the other ranch-hand across the table, a Mexican by his looks, put his fork down on his plate, got up, and left. Floyd turned and said, the words flat, "Indulged in a late night again, George?"

George just grinned and picked up his fork. Pointedly, Floyd turned back to Bridger.

Floyd and Bridger talked cattle while George ate. Using a skill honed for more pleasant, if less respectable, purposes, Jesse covertly studied the young cattle-herder. George no longer seemed rattled, but he also wasn't crapulous. He was eating too fast for man with a sour stomach. He didn't vary the steady rhythm of his fork moving between plate and mouth until Bridger finished a sentence with "—some wild creeks, according to Mrs. Lane."

"You were in Los Angeles? You saw Mrs. Lane?" The words practically chased each other on the way out of George's mouth. When he saw the expression of mild surprise that Bridger turned upon him, George caught himself, leant back, and said, "I wouldn't have pegged you as a man interested in women's hats, Mister."

"Wardley is my name," Bridger said with a hint of a frown at the address. "And this tall cuss next to me is Jesse. We're down from the Playa Negra to see to those eastern cattle."

Jesse decided that it was time to speak. "Mrs. Lane was kind enough to converse with us when we asked her about a bandit around the ranch. Any other business would be between her and her husband."

At the sound of Jesse's voice, George's upper lip pulled back from his teeth slightly and his eyes narrowed. The expression made what might have been a handsome countenance ugly. "Say now, Jesse—"

With a bang, the door to the side porch opened. Sam came in, face flushed. "If you can find the time, George, I need your help to finish packing the nearside wagon."

"I'm having lunch," George protested.

"How about you stop eating lunch and start working before Mr. Lane notices you haven't been around all morning?"

"He wouldn't say nothing," George said, and smirked.

Sam snatched off his porkpie hat and smacked it across the back of George's head. "I would. Now, get going before I say it." To Jesse at least, it seemed as if Sam yearned to use something more solid than a felt hat on what must be his younger brother. However, the hat was enough. George stood up and followed Sam out of the dining room.

"Probably out last night with those gamblers from El Monte again," Floyd said. His gaze drifted across Jesse briefly before he said, "Those fellows are nothing but uppity loafers and Sunday soldiers. You still might want to watch out for them." Pulling a battered pocket watch out, he opened the cover to examine its face and said, "I'm about to be late myself. Excuse me." He got up and left, leaving Jesse and Bridger alone with the cook and his assistant.

"I'm surprised Mr. Lane keeps that one around," Bridger said. Jesse knew he wasn't talking about Floyd.

Jesse looked over at the open kitchen door and nudged Bridger under the table with his foot. Bridger nodded and changed the subject to their afternoon trip out to see the eastern herd.

***

When he looked inside the main barn an hour later, Jesse saw Lane walking around a large wagon with the tight, measured movements of man reining back his temper. Upon hearing Jesse's footsteps, he turned, and made an obvious effort to restrain himself.

"Mr. Lane," Jesse said, "Wardley and I are going to ride out towards Greasewood canyon and check those heads of cattle."

"Will you two be out overnight?"

"Yes sir."

"Go ahead and get supplies from the storeroom. The cook, Ah Ying will bundle up some trail rations for you. If there's anything else you need, ask Sam."

"Thank you." Jesse hesitated, and then said, "We rode through Los Angeles on our way here."

"Did you?" Lane's head cocked. "That's no surprise."

"Anyhow, we needed directions."

Lane's lips twitched upwards, but the expression that resulted was slightly sad. "How is my wife? Doing well? I hope she wasn't too brusque. As clever as she is, she can be—" He caught himself.

Jesse said, "Mrs. Lane seemed to be in blooming health although she only spoke with us briefly." Lane nodded. His smile had warmed a little. "Her directions to the ranch were very helpful."

"She didn't send a message with you." The words weren't a question.

"No."

Lane hoisted both eyebrows. Jesse thought he detected an odd note of pride when the manager said, "She wouldn't."

"Mrs. Lane did say something about deciding soon." Jesse shrugged incomprehension.

"May that day come quickly, trailing luck in its train." Then, as if half-ashamed of what seemed to be uncharacteristically flowery language, Lane turned away and called out, "Miguel, is that strap-down ready?"

There was a clanking noise from the far side of the wagon before a voice said, " _Si, finalmente_."

"Go on, then. You may already be too late to reach Xabier before nightfall." He turned back to Jesse. "I believe you'll also want to be on your way."

Jesse nodded.

"Good luck with the eastern cattle." Lane's eyes seemed to glint as he said, "Watch out for their horns."

 

VII — A Mystery, Although Compelling, May Not Be All-Consuming

 

Jesse twitched the reins and eased Carro forward a few steps before flicking his arm to loosen his riata around the cow's hind legs. The loop of rawhide fell to the ground. At the same time, Bridger was snapping his arm in a practiced movement that would loosen his own tie around the cow's horns, leaning well out of the saddle once he had enough slack to quickly tug away the riata. As Bridger finished, Misteria danced back out of the way. She had dainty footwork. Freed, the cow mooed loudly, rolled her eyes, and suddenly veered away from the two of them to crash off down the slope.

"Well, those were some very long horns," Bridger said, coiling his riata.

Jesse chuckled. "Yes, indeed. However, horns or no horns, they seem to be doing well enough."

"No sign of screwworms or Spanish fever," Bridger agreed. The cow was the third of her herd that they had roped and released. "Do you want to check any more of them?"

"We're losing the light. Shall we make camp instead?"

"That sounds like a good idea."

Before they made camp, they rode far enough away from the cattle that they wouldn't have any nocturnal bovine visitors. Jesse was glad that he and Bridger had watered the horses back down towards the western mouth of the canyon because tonight's camp would be dry. At least they would have a fire.

After dinner, Jesse got out his rawhide and started to braid. It would quiet his thinking and help him to keep his mind on business. Bridger sat watching him work. Oddly, being observed didn't feel uncomfortable. After a few minutes, Bridger asked, "Did you find anything out from Mr. Lane?"

"He has a sense of humor. He misses his wife." Jesse's fingers paused for a moment while he considered. "He probably suspects that we're tasked with more than inspecting these cows."

"I got a chance to chat with that vaquero who was at lunch with us, Estavan. He was in the barn while I was getting the horses ready."

"That was quick work." Jesse set down his half-done riata on its wrappings.

"Turns out the fellow's a gossip, and he hates young George. He was fed up over the supply wagon and wanted the chance to say so to a fellow vaquero, at length. After he started, he was easy to keep going. According to him, George is not only rude and lazy, but a practical joker to boot, the kind who just won't quit."

Jesse winced. Too many stunts like hiding iron shot in a ranch-hand's boots, stopping up chimneys with rags, or smearing pepper sauce onto the outhouse seats could make ranch life a misery. "He does indeed sound like a proper candidate for our ghost rider. What about Mr. Lane?"

"I think Estavan's ready to light a votive candle in front of him. If Estavan's right, Lane's about as good a man as he's reported to be, if somewhat on the gruff side. He's a fine boss."

"Given that, I do wonder why George is still working on Los Robles."

"That's the question, isn't it? I wonder the same about Sam; he's supposed to spend a lot of time wrapped around a bottle."

"Lane could be too soft to send them both packing," Jesse said.

They looked at each other and shook their heads, rejecting that notion, at the same time.

"Not to mention," Bridger said, "the best bit I kept back for last. George was sniffing around Mrs. Lane before she left for Los Angeles."

"Odd. She must be a decade older than he is and rather plain to boot," Jesse said. Then he looked at Bridger, who was smiling a touch wickedly, and sighed. "Never mind. Could George have accosted her? No, he still has his hide on his back and his horse in the Los Robles stable, although I don't know why."

"All this does keep coming around to that same question, doesn't it?" Bridger's smile disappeared. "It seems that George has never quite stepped over the line with his chivalric attentions, even if they're about as refined as his jokes are funny. After she'd told him once to mind his own beeswax, Mrs. Lane pretty much ignored him. But Lane had some sort of big talk with his missus right after the ghost rider first showed up, and she was packed and gone that same afternoon."

Jesse considered for a while before he said, "I don't know how all of this fits together – the night rider, Sam and George, how Lane manages the ranch, Mrs. Lane running off to make hats in Los Angeles – but I can't help thinking that it does."

"We need to know more than we do."

"Yes," Jesse agreed. "Let's leave matters alone for now. We'll have a chance to talk to some of the others back at the ranch tomorrow."

By unspoken agreement, they spent the rest of the time before the fire died down working on their braiding and trying to top each other's stories. Gradually the stories shifted from anecdotes to yarns and from yarns to tall tales. Jesse felt that he did well with a story about a Yankee peddler who Jesse claimed was his great-grandfather, three clocks that didn't work, and a farmer, but Bridger topped him with a tale about the wedge-shaped cows he had tended in the circular barn on the Shaker land where he'd grown up. When they both stopped laughing, Bridger banked the fire while Jesse walked out in the dark to relieve himself.

With his hands busy, he considered repeating his foolishness of two nights ago on the trail. However, such a notion somehow seemed like an invitation for the ghost rider to finally return, so he went back to the fire and settled down into his blankets.

After last night he was tired, but he didn't seem to want to sleep. Instead he turned over all that Bridger had said about himself in his mind, lingering here and there to fit the bits of stories together. How such a man could have implied that he was dull, Jesse still did not understand. To Jesse, Bridger was a mystery, a riddle, an appealing enigma in vaquero's clothing, no matter how straightforward he tried to appear. Jesse lay contemplating Bridger: his simple speech, his gentle smile, the talented hands, the handsome body with its lean, well-shaped hips and pale, long cock—

By Jove, Jesse was going to be a fool again. He sat up.

"Jesse?" Apparently, he hadn't been the only one awake.

They had laid out their bedrolls close to each other to take advantage of the banked fire's lingering heat. This far inland, the spring nights could get cold. It was the work of a moment to shuffle on his knees to where Bridger now sat up in his blankets. Jesse could see well enough in the moonlight to reach out and find Bridger's groin.

Bridger asked him, "Have you decided to enjoy yourself this time?" For once, his words were not calm.

"Why yes, I believe that I have."

***

The first shudder came while Jesse was working Bridger's undershirt loose from his trousers. Jesse felt the tremor run along the muscles of Bridger's lower back and paused, considering. Then he moved his hand slowly up under the linen, caressing the smooth skin over Bridger's spine, feeling the flex and flow as Bridger breathed. That sensation was enough to convince Jesse that he wanted more than just another quick tussle.

Bridger had removed his coat, vest, and shirt before lying down to sleep, and his braces dangled loose from his trousers as he sat with Jesse's hand stroking his back. It was the work of a moment to undo a few buttons on his placket, strip his undershirt off over his head, and toss it aside. Then Jesse had both hands on Bridger's chest and was pushing him back down into the blankets. Jesse didn't know what else he was going to do before he did it: Bridger tasted of dust and skin as Jesse ran his open mouth across Bridger's chest, trailing his tongue, savoring the flatness and the chafe of hair against his lips. Once more cradled in Jesse's hand through the layers of cloth, Bridger's cock was hardening.

Jesse pushed himself up and away. In the moonlight, he could still see the shift of Bridger's eyes. Smiling, Jesse unbuttoned Bridger's trousers, but this time, instead of lowering his mouth as he undid the buttons of the drawers, he told Bridger, "Stand up."

Without a word, Bridger did so. Jesse yanked the trousers down and worked them off one foot at a time, forcing Bridger to support his weight with a hand on Jesse's shoulder. Then Jesse reached up to run fingers down the drawers seam that ran between Bridger's buttocks, which earned him his second shudder. He slowly untied the drawstring bow at the back of the drawers' waistband. The fly buttons in front he undid much more quickly, and Bridger sighed as his cock rose free at last. In response, Jesse pulled at the drawers, tugging them down.

Male nakedness was rare, usually seen only around bathtubs and swimming holes. Even during fornication, a man's body generally stayed clad. Grateful for the moonlight, Jesse paused to look, running his hands up and down the solidity of Bridger's slightly bowed legs before he finally stood. When he wrapped his arms around Bridger and half-wrestled him down into the blankets again, Bridger's breathing was loud enough that Jesse could hear it over his own racing pulse. Bridger's breathing grew harsher as Jesse unbuttoned his flies, freed himself, and then lowered his weight onto Bridger to push his cock between Bridger's loosely closed thighs.

For a minute or so, the rough friction and hard rubbing of Bridger's cock against Jesse's clad belly was enough. Soon, though, Jesse wanted more. He pulled loose, rolled off, reached back over to grip Bridger's cock, and asked, "Is your rawhide grease near to hand?" He'd packed his own away deep in his saddlebags. The response in his fist answered the other question that he hadn't asked even before Bridger said, "Yes."

They ended up using Bridger's saddle. Jesse had pulled off his own shirt and undershirt before he lost patience at the sight of Bridger well forward on hands and knees, his ass raised by the arch of the leather. Jesse got down onto his own knees still wearing his trousers and drawers, with only the long flies open. But he did take the time to rub, and then nuzzle, between Bridger's buttocks before he used the grease. That wasn't a chore but a pleasure.

By the time Jesse was working his cock into Bridger's ass, and Bridger was grunting beneath him as he coped with the stretching, Jesse had slowed for the sake of his own enjoyment. Jesse savored the strength pushing up beneath him even as he forced a greasy hand between skin and leather. Bridger didn't need to start a new and unique set of calluses from this night's ride. Then all that mattered was fucking the tight heat that Jesse had yearned for since he had first seen Bridger's gentle smile and his well-exercised ass.

Like most first rides, their sodomy wasn't all ease. Once or twice Jesse was sure he had bruised Bridger, and Jesse ended up with some teeth marks on his forearm. When Jesse had finished cursing into Bridger's back, Bridger was still trying to buck up underneath Jesse's weight, to strop against the leather of the saddle. Jesse had to practically force Bridger over onto his back so that Jesse could use his mouth to finish what his hand and cock had started.

When they were done, they both lay sprawled out for a few minutes, still quiet, until Jesse slapped at a mosquito. For some reason, that made Bridger chuckle. Maybe it was the contrast between their forbidden rutting and the mundane assault.

Bridger sat up and said, "Well, you didn't ask, but I do believe you enjoyed yourself."

It was Jesse's turn to laugh. "I did."

"Now I have to clean my saddle." The comment was amused, not complaining.

"I have a little saddle soap. I'll get what's left of the water, too. Then we can also scrub ourselves up enough to put our drawers back on. Otherwise we'll be eaten alive by morning, not to mention the chance of getting sunburnt if we oversleep."

Bridger snorted at that notion.

As he dressed for bed, Jesse wondered why the act of sodomy was so much easier than being a sodomite. It was a mystery, but not one he intended to solve this late at night, any more than he could sort out the tangle at Los Robles without some sleep. He settled for pausing in his own dressing long enough to push Bridger's hands aside and do up the buttons on his undershirt for him. When he was done, Bridger rubbed the back of his hand against Jesse's cheek in rough caress again, as he had last night. This time Jesse didn't start. Instead, relaxed amidst his blankets a few minutes later, Jesse came to a decision.

"Bridger," Jesse said into the dark.

"What?"

"I think we should talk with Lane again. I think we should tell him the truth."

"You're the boss on this expedition, Jesse."

As he lay waiting for sleep, Jesse tried to decide if the words had been amused or contented. Both, he decided at last.

 

VIII — You May Lead a Man Towards Aiming, but You Cannot Make Him Hit

 

If there was one lesson Jesse had been grateful to learn during the late rebellion, it was the difficulty of actually hitting a man with a bullet. He'd never expected to feel that particular gratitude again. He'd been wrong.

He and Bridger had paused at a stream on their way out of Greasewood Canyon to water the horses when they heard the first bullet. The hiss of its passage wasn't loud, but the splat-crack of a bullet hitting rock together with the echoing sound of the shot was unmistakable. Jesse was up on his saddle and driving Carro back into the oaks before he could wonder who was firing a rifle. If he'd had the time and remained a praying man, he would have given thanks for the remnant of a soldier's perception. That training told him Bridger rode close behind even as more bullets hit wood, stone, and water.

The oaks ran upslope and ended in a bank of thick chaparral. Jesse reined Carro to a halt and dropped out of his saddle as quietly as he could, unholstering his carbine to bring it with him. Carro would have to manage on his own: Jesse couldn't ride him into the stiff and interlaced shrubs. The oaks around them would provide some cover, but Jesse still moved quickly away from his horse. Carro was just too large a target to stay anywhere near. Instead, squatting low, he half-ran and half-scuttled up to some boulders close by the brush line. Bridger was right behind him.

They both paused, holding their breaths. After a few seconds, Jesse could hear again over the pounding of his pulse. There was another ricochet, closer to the horses but not to them. Looking back downhill, he could see that Misteria was slowly edging through the trees away from all the noise. Carro, on the other hand, had dropped his head and was eating a clump of bunchgrass.

Jesse heard another shot and strike, seemingly no nearer to the boulders. He looked over at Bridger, who had his revolver out and a distant look upon his face, probably from concentrating on listening.

Then it was quiet. Even the birds had stilled at the sound of shots. Briefly, the only noise was of Carro cropping more grass. Finally, faintly, Jesse thought he heard the sounds of a man moving somewhere out across the canyon.

Bridger suddenly mimed actions that Jesse realized, after a few seconds of confusion, were those of a man crawling low. He nodded, wishing that he had the chaparral experience he would have needed to shake his head in refusal. As Jesse had anticipated, after his nod of approval Bridger holstered his gun, crouched down, and walked low to the edge of the thick brush. Then, with the speed possible only to someone who'd done the deed before, Bridger crawled up the slope beneath the canopy of the chaparral. The trunks and rocks would tear at his clothing, but if Bridger stayed down he could avoid the impassable tangle of the thorny branches and arrive at the top of the ridge. The only serious danger would be rattlers. Jesse winced at the memory.

Such worries were self-indulgent. Easing into an angle between two of the boulders, Jesse rested his carbine on the rock. From here he could fire across the slope if their attacker tried the insanity of approaching the brush. No experienced man would bother with such an assault, but no experienced man would try shooting them through the foliage that grew around a spring. Jesse himself would have waited until his targets were riding away from the canyon mouth onto the plains. Better still, he would have shot their horses from cover at point-blank range and then picked off the riders at his leisure.

The passing minutes seemed to slow. Jesse had all the time in the world to think old, sore, soldierly thoughts as he listened to Bridger working his way up the hill and heard— Yes, that was the sound of a horse galloping away.

Jesse stayed still, waiting with carbine held steady for what felt like an eternity until Bridger returned. At last, with a rustle of branches shifted from below, Bridger reemerged from the brush. But Bridger's instincts were good: he kept low until he was back at Jesse's side. There could have been another assailant besides the one who had just ridden off, after all.

Bridger's words were quiet. "One man. But I reached the ridgeline too late to get a good look. All I could see was a tall figure wearing a planter's hat."

They looked at each other, both considering. The first birds resumed chirping. Misteria whickered at something known only to herself, and the steady sounds of Carro cropping grass continued. At last Jesse said, "I want to be fair. This pleases me too much. Did you see anyone else around Los Robles who wore a planter's?"

"No," Bridger said, "but someone might be playing the deceiver."

"I don't think anyone realizes that I've seen George with his hat on, since that was at night."

"Sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer. We'll find out more back at the house."

"Yes."

Bridger took a deep breath and let it out. "We do have one more problem."

Jesse settled for raising his brows in inquiry.

"As you probably understand better than me, anyone with any sense scouts around before an ambush. We don't know how long this shooter – might as well call him George – was watching us. It could have been since last night. He might have seen us while we were busy." Bridger tilted the brim of his own hat back with one finger. "That would be trouble." As usual, both his expression and his words were calm.

To his surprise, Jesse realized that he felt nothing but anger at the prospect of having been watched while in intimate embrace. "I don't care what that useless vermin has to say. In any case, the two of us together can face George down, especially given what he's most likely been up to today."

Bridger smiled. "I knew you weren't fearful."

"Excuse me?"

"About being a sodomite. I didn't think you were afraid. Maybe it's your pilgrim fathers peering over your shoulder that make you so uneasy about your tendencies."

"The Putnams were Puritans, not pilgrims, and we are presently Unitarians," Jesse retorted. Then he added, exasperated with himself, "That is neither here nor there, though. We need to return to the house, and quickly."

"Yes, we do."

"He might try setting another ambush just outside of the canyon. I would."

Bridger smiled, but for once his face wasn't serene. It was mean. "You were a cavalryman. I don't think our bushwhacker was."

"We'll still be careful." Jesse wondered if he looked as bleak as he felt.

"Yes, sir." There was no irony in Bridger's address. Nor did Jesse feel the need to cavil at Bridger's "sir." Jesse was using skills that he'd hoped never to use again and making the kinds of decisions that he hated. He'd use the respect as balm.

This bushwhacker was building up one hell of a bill. Jesse dearly hoped that it would be George who paid.

***

When they rode up to the main house, it was buzzing like a bee hive that had been kicked over. A pair of ranch-hands was riding out; others were closing up the outbuildings. Even the dogs had gotten up off the patio bricks to bark as Jesse and Bridger rode up to the barn.

The stable hand, a quiet lad who seemed to have a lot of Indian blood, didn't pester them with questions, but his attitude was wary. Lane made up for the youth's caution, though, when he strode into the barn. "You two come with me," he said, and turned his back to walk away. Jesse and Bridger looked at each other. Bridger shrugged, and they followed.

They trailed him through the patio entrance to the main house and down a long corridor into what was obviously his office. The interior was neat and new, papered with flower-diamond print, unadorned except for a handful of ships in bottles displayed atop the low bookcases full of legers and books about ranching and the west. Jesse blinked at the notion of Lane sitting still long enough to piece together the delicate riggings and masts.

Lane pulled the armchair away from his desk, and sat. He didn't invite them to sit. However, he didn't tell them to take their hats off, either. He only looked up and asked, "Well?"

Jesse spoke. "Someone shot at us up in Greasewood canyon. He didn't know what he was doing. As you can see, he missed."

"Whoever it was wore a planter's hat, and I think he was tall," Bridger added.

"One of my shepherds rode in to report all the shooting." Lane looked at both of them, and then back at Jesse. "Are you the one actually in charge?"

"Yes."

For a long moment Lane considered, eyes narrowed. Then he said, voice flat, "Please sit down, gentlemen."

Jesse moved a birch side chair away from its place against the wall and did so. He noticed that Bridger took out a handkerchief and spread it over the embroidered seat cushion before he sat in another of the side chairs. Crawling under chaparral had done nothing for the cleanliness of Bridger's trousers.

"May I take it that you were expecting the Giffords would send more investigators?" Jesse asked.

Lane nodded, obviously impatient but willing to answer questions as well as ask them. "Everyone on this ranch was expecting more nosing around." He finished his turn by saying, "What you've just told me implies that George ambushed you."

"Such facts as we've collected seem to point that way, yes."

"George came riding in here about a half-hour before you did. After he'd heard all of old Xabier's hooting and hollering, he changed steeds and rode out again, lashing his horse like he was trying to win the Epsom Derby." There was a hint of a growl to the words as he added, "On Sam's horse. Towards Los Angeles."

"Towards Mrs. Lane?" Bridger asked, voice very mild.

"Likely enough, the amorous son of a bitch. I thought he was either scared to fight or off to warn whichever lowdown friend of his was poaching on this property. But if George thinks that he has anything to bargain with that will make me stand at ease while he shoots at strangers and bothers my wife, he can just think again."

Jesse asked, "He's been bargaining with you before this? Has he been asking for money from the ranch, or accepting commissions to assure that you only deal with certain merchants at certain times?"

Lane stared at Jesse for a few seconds. Then he let out a crack of laughter. "Hell, no. I use the merchants who will still deal with me after they learn that I was a Union officer. And I've been channeling any extra money we earn into developing this ranch: the land needs more to prosper than the Giffords would most likely give it. All George has been getting from me is continued employment for him and his brother, in exchange for not spreading around what Sam told him about my war service. And I was about done with that poor bargain. This ghost nonsense is hurting the ranch more than my war record ever could."

Jesse studied Lane. Then he asked, "Exactly what units did you officer?"

"I had moved north well before Fort Sumner, so I started with the Connecticut Volunteers. By the end of the war, I was an officer of the USCT." With a sour smile, he added what Jesse already knew. "United States Colored Troops, that is."

"A lot of the locals really would not like your having commanded armed Negros, would they? No wonder George thought that he could bargain." Jesse fell silent for a moment. Something was still nagging at him, but—

Bridger had been studying Lane, too. "Do you think that George will use your record to enlist his friends from El Monte against you now?"

"Good luck to them in a fair fight. The last fellow who tried to blackwhip me for being a Union veteran got a dram of his own tincture."

"You don't worry about bushwhacking or banditry?" Bridger frowned. "From what little we've heard, they sound impulsive."

"They surely might try something around Los Robles." Lane's nostrils flared very slightly, and he leant forward as he said, "That's why I'll be staying here with the hands while you two ride out in pursuit of George. There's not much chance of an ambush between here and Los Angeles, after all, once you're off the ranch."

Jesse looked at Bridger; Bridger looked at Jesse. Jesse wondered if his own astonishment showed when he turned back to Lane and asked, "You don't want us to stay here while you ride after George?"

"If I see him now, I'll kill him. I am fit to be tied." The words were flat and definite. Then, with a bit more life in his voice, Lane added, "Not to mention, as you yourselves told me, my wife sent no message. When she wishes to see me again, she'll let me know."

No matter how fraternal the match might have been, Jesse had been married. Sometimes, when it came to resolving an argument with his wife, a man just had to swallow his pride and plead his case. "This hardly seems like the time—"

Lane was darkly amused. "Mr. Whatever-your-real-name-is, you don't know Mrs. Lane. We recently had a talk, and she still has a decision to make. Believe you me, I know better than to interrupt her before she makes it." He got up, obviously to indicate that the interview was over. Then he paused. "Gentlemen, may I ask you for one favor?"

For one favor? Jesse thought, but he only said, "If you will."

"Speak to Sam. I want him off this ranch, but if I see him right now, I'll kill him, too. He doesn't deserve that." With a snort like a bull, he amended, "He doesn't quite deserve that."

"We'll make the conversation quick," Bridger said. Jesse could only silently agree. Unlike Lane, he could hardly stay calm at the idea of a decent woman facing a wild youth with romance on his mind and a gun at his hip.

There was still a great deal about what was happening on Los Robles that Jesse felt he did not understand.

 

IX — All Men Are Not Alike in the Dark

 

On the way to the west wing, they ran into Floyd talking to the cook's young assistant, who was now cradling a shotgun. Bridger asked, "Where's Sam?"

Floyd looked sour. "In the shearing barn. Drinking." They left him telling the youngster, "See if you can get the cleaver away from him and have him use that old blunderbuss of his instead."

Even in the cool of morning, the shearing barn smelled strongly of hide and lanolin. A few extra fleeces were stacked in one corner, and that was where Sam was sprawled out with his eyes closed and his lips moving. He must have worked fast or started early to empty as much of the bottle of rye clutched in his hand as he had.

Jesse knew they didn't have a great deal of time. He was still a little surprised when Bridger pulled out his revolver, walked quietly up to Sam, and gently pressed the barrel against the man's forehead for a moment. At the cold touch, Sam opened his eyes and seemed to try to focus. At least, when he finally realized what was going on, he had the good sense to keep still.

Bridger stepped back but kept the revolver aimed. "I won't insult you by asking where your brother went. You'd need more than a gun pointed at you to answer that question. But you better start talking, Sam."

As Bridger spoke, Jesse shifted slightly so that he could watch the entrance to the barn. It would be a pity if one of the other ranch-hands wandered in and mistook the situation.

Bridger added, "I'd wager you told him that we were more agents from San Francisco. However, I don't understand why he panicked and tried to kill us."

"Kill?" Sam started at the sound of his own question, and then rushed on with, "He was just trying to scare you. He missed, didn't he?"

That possibility had simply never occurred to Jesse. After four years of war, he took ricochets too seriously to have considered that someone might fire all those bullets only as a ploy. He found himself asking "What in Hades—" and fell silent.

Sam's eyes were watery as he stared up at Jesse. "He thought you'd believe that he was some bandit you were talking about, and think that bandit was the night rider."

Jesse shook his head in amazement.

Sam seemed to take the shake for disagreement, and said, "He thought you'd be scared off. He thought I'd swear that he was here on the ranch. He thought— I don't know what he thought." Taking another swig, he said, "I guess he didn't think that anyone might see him. I guess he just about fainted when he looked back and someone was up on that ridge behind him. All of Xabier's hollering was only the last straw." In a lower voice, Sam told the bottle, "Boy never was very smart." The bottle seemingly had no reply to this.

Jesse asked, "George is chasing off towards Los Angeles so he can ask Mrs. Lane to flee with him, isn't he?"

Sam's shoulders slumped. "I don't understand him, not one bit. She's nothing to look at."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Jesse said. "You'd better worry instead about what will happen when he finds Mrs. Lane. Why didn't he just ambush Mr. Lane if he wanted the man's wife so badly?"

"He's not a killer." Perhaps seeing their expressions, Sam added weakly, "He figured that, if he had some time, he could talk her around. Besides, you don't know Mrs. Lane. If George had killed Lane, sooner or later she would have found out. Then, sooner or later, she would have got George. Cut his throat while he was asleep, maybe."

"Even though she and Mr. Lane have been quarreling?" Bridger sounded curious, not surprised.

"Lane was the one who lifted her and her Ma out of poverty. She's real big on paying her debts, and she's a hellion. Maybe that's why George likes her." Taken aback, Jesse didn't say anything, and Sam continued, voice shaking, "I should have kept quiet about meeting Lane and his niggers in Virginia during the war. But I'd had a few drinks and George wouldn't leave me be."

"So, then he thought he was on the driver's bench around here?" Jesse clenched a fist. "Don't bother to answer that."

Sam didn't bother. He was too busy being aggrieved. "Lane always was wary around me, holding me off for no good reason. Even when I first came down here from the Lone Tree, he wouldn't talk about anything back home. I don't care if he was an orphan. That's no excuse to shun me. No wonder I started drinking again. After that, I needed something to keep him from firing me. Fair's fair." As if he'd just remembered his brother, he amended his penultimate sentence. "Firing me and George."

Jesse made sure Sam was looking him in the eye before he spoke again. He wanted Sam to see he was serious even through the liquor. "If I was you, I'd be off this ranch before Lane stops being so busy and starts weighing what a burden you are against the slight difficulty of his war record. After he does that, I don't think you'll need to worry about his firing you anymore. Killing you, though—"

***

They left Sam muttering to himself and stumbling around in the shearing barn. Jesse hoped the man's wanderings were the first, vague preparations for departing and not a search for another bottle. He wouldn't have wagered money in either direction.

As they rode off, Jesse said, "I wonder if he'll actually have the stomach to try getting his own back by spreading the news about Lane's regiment."

"Most likely he'll just slink away. After all, even when he had the chance, he never tried for anything but the employment he didn't really deserve. Sam doesn't seem like one for confrontations."

"Unlike his brother."

Bridger said, "George probably rode around wearing a pillow case as a joke and to remind Lane of who was in the catbird seat. I don't know why he kept going after that, especially with the Giffords' inspectors coming and going."

To Jesse, the answer seemed obvious. "Because Mrs. Lane went away from her husband right after that first ride. George may not have known why that happened, but he was just smart enough to note the timing. If playing Kluxer could move Mrs. Lane to Los Angeles and out from under Lane's watchful eyes, play Kluxer he would. It seemed to work until I came along, talking about bandits and using words that might imply Mrs. Lane and her husband were speaking again."

"I do think you're right," Bridger said.

"However, all this leads to another loose end. Even on short acquaintance, Lane strikes me as not being an easy man to rattle." Jesse shook his head. "But one round of George's idiotic masquerade spurred Lane into telling his wife something that sent her right back to her mother. She's supposed to be a loyal woman, too. I wonder what in Hades could be on Lane's conscience. The reports paint him as a model of probity."

"You don't have any notions?" Bridger asked, facing forward. He was frowning thoughtfully.

"At first, I thought perhaps Lane was—" Jesse hesitated. Bridger turned to him, and Jesse waved from Bridger towards himself and back again. "—like you and me. But there's a certain look in his eyes when he talks about his wife."

Bridger rode for a while without speaking. Then he said, "Well, I do have another guess."

Jesse waited. Finally, he asked, "Which is?"

"That he's passing." The words were both calm and measured, but Bridger was still looking at the road rather than Jesse. "I believe Lane is actually a Negro: probably a quadroon or octoroon, given his appearance."

There might be other explanations, but Jesse couldn't think of them right now. His mind pieced the puzzle together: Lane's moving north, the probity of his character contrasted with his reluctance to speak of his background, his volunteering to fight and then to lead colored troops, the secret that had sent his wife away. His wife.

Jesse realized that his mouth was open and closed it. Then he said, "Lane must be—" The sentence was going nowhere good. He tried again. "The man married." He couldn't bring himself to add 'a white woman.'

"So did you."

Bridger's words weren't condemning, but they still blighted the conversation for a good distance. They had been alternately walking, trotting, and galloping the horses, and Jesse used a stretch of trotting to rake over his own reactions with the relentlessness of a Boston-bred conscience. Before he could bring himself to speak, though, Bridger spoke first.

"You seem taken aback." There was no criticism in Bridger's words.

"I am, but I shouldn't be. We campaigned with colored regiments during the war. Having met some of their Sergeants, not to mention one or two of my parent's dinner guests—" Jesse trailed off and shook his head. "Now I feel ignorant."

"No need." Bridger shrugged. "A man sees what he expects to see, accepts what he's primed to accept."

"You saw otherwise. You're not ranting."

"I grew up with Negro brethren, even a Negro elder, among the Shakers. It was an education that most white men didn't get, abolitionist or not. There's a great difference between meeting someone at a dinner and living with them as your intimate or your superior." Bridger's gaze was level. "Besides, we two understand something about living a lie, and why a man might choose to do so in spite of his better nature. Our sort doesn't have the corner on such deceptions."

The list of reasons for Lane to hide his race would be long. For one, the Giffords were radical Republicans, but would even they employ a Negro as a ranch manager? Jesse knew that his Uncle's and Aunt's reasoning would probably invoke the problems that a Negro could expect with almost every white he encountered in the course of business. Their answer would still be no.

And Lane was in love with his wife. Jesse forced his mind back towards what it could cope with. He shook his head. "Well, at least you learned more from hiding than how to abrade your conscience."

"I learned young," Bridger said. Glancing sideways, Jesse realized Bridger was smiling in the way that had first attracted Jesse's attention back in San Francisco. "However, you learn fast. What do you intend to do about the Lanes, Mr. Putnam?"

In the end, the choice was obvious. "Colonel Putnam intends to ride like the cavalryman he was towards Los Angeles and do there whatever he needs to do in order to deal with an impulsive fool." Without consulting his judgment, his hand touched the butt of his revolver. Realizing how premature that gesture was, he kicked Carro back into a gallop instead.

 

X — A Woman's Work is Never Done

 

When they reached the street in front of Mrs. Lane's house, Sam's horse was already there, unhitched and wandering about, trampling the flowers in the front garden. There, too, were three of what Jesse took to be the boys from El Monte: two were weather-worn fellows in sack suits, one large, one small, and the third was a hefty man dressed in a frockcoat over unfortunate checked trousers. Jesse was surprised to recognize the last man present. The Irishman from the bar, Flannigan, was loudly remonstrating with the man in a frockcoat.

"You can't bother decent women like this, Mr. Mills. It'll give the town a bad name."

"Nonsense, Flannigan. Our friend George merely wishes to warn Mrs. Lane about some unfortunate events occurring out on Los Robles."

Deciding to try for an inconspicuous entrance while the bickering was still in progress, Jesse swung down out of his saddle and made for the front walk. The weight of his reins would keep Carro in place even in the face of floral temptation.

Jesse had made it almost past the quarrelling cluster when his luck ran out. "Hellfire, it's that goddamned Yankee bluebelly. Get him!" the small fellow shouted. So much for discretion: he must have recognized Jesse from the saloon bar. Thank heavens the fellow was long-winded. Before the words were entirely done, Jesse had turned and hit the larger man in the gut, hard, and then chopped him across the throat. Most fights were either finished in under half a minute or dragged on for painful eons. Since Jesse had the advantage of surprise, this fight had started as the former variety.

Now, though, the small man was backing away from Jesse, groping for a gun that wasn't there. Flannigan and Mills turned away from their argument to see what was going on just as the small fellow dodged Jesse's lunge and bolted into the garden. He grabbed for Sam's horse or, more likely, for the rifle holstered on the horse's saddle. But Sam's horse was no Carro. Spooked by all the noise and the stranger running at him, the gelding danced away, his hooves putting paid to the jasmine bushes planted to one side of the front walk. The small fellow was trying for another grab when a voice interrupted him.

"Don't. I'll shoot a hole in your head that the sun will shine through." That was Bridger, his words pitched to carry. Bridger was off of Misteria, standing in a peculiar stance with his legs braced wide and his revolver held out in front of him with both hands. Somehow Jesse had no doubt that Bridger would do what he said. The small fellow seemed to think the same thing. He stopped, and then slowly stretched his hands out far from his sides. Flannigan and Mills also held still.

Almost anywhere, a conflict of this magnitude would attract a crowd. It was certainly true in Los Angeles, even given the short time that the fighting had lasted. Perhaps the spectators had been alerted by the shouting before the actual brawl began. Several of the neighbors had gathered, even though they were standing well back. At Bridger's words, an aproned woman grabbed two small children by the upper arms and hustled them away, but the rest of the spectators only gasped and commented. Thus, there was quite an audience when a female voice inside the house screamed and then kept screaming.

It was a race to the front hall that Jesse and Bridger won, since the small fellow, the other starter with a good position, used his opportunity to vault the bushes and disappear down a cross street. But most of the crowd was hot on their heels.

Inside, a well-dressed elderly lady was working up to a case of the vapors. Nothing else seemed to be obviously wrong, and the woman – Jesse supposed that she must be Mrs. Lane's mother – was not coherent. But a quick look revealed that the door to the front room was open. Jesse drew his own revolver, and he and Bridger charged through the doorway.

When they entered, Mrs. Lane was sitting in her rocker with her apron twisted around her hands. Her hair was coming down on one side. Something had stained the apron, and a large, red mark marred her left cheek. She was staring at the daguerreotypes hung on the wall, and looked up only when Jesse and Bridger stood before her, Jesse breathing from the fight and Bridger still holding his revolver in that odd, two-handed grip but pointed towards the ceiling now.

Jesse let Bridger speak. "Mrs. Lane?"

"Yes?" She looked up and swallowed. Then her expression firmed. "Is Mother all right?"

Bridger took a few steps back and glanced out through the open door. "There's a lady with smelling salts." He stepped forward again, just in time for Flannigan and Mills to crowd into the room, followed by some of the neighbors.

"Oh, good," Mrs. Lane said. "She doesn't deal well with surprises."

"We were wondering if George persuaded you—" Mills was saying as he entered. He stopped.

George wouldn't be persuading anyone of anything. He was dead on the floor. There was blood on the rag rug and even more blood on George's body, especially around where the hatpin stuck out of the hollow of his throat. Mrs. Lane ignored all of that. Standing, she said, "He certainly didn't persuade me, the reptile."

Bridger opened his mouth, but Jesse spoke first, interrupting him. No matter what Mrs. Lane's principles might be, there was such a thing as too much honesty, and Los Angeles had an active and fickle taste for vigilante justice. Her story had to be the right story. "You did what you had to, Mrs. Lane. When a man tries to assault a virtuous matron, he must be stopped."

Mrs. Lane's chin rose, and her hazel eyes blinked for a moment in confusion. Then her intelligence came to her rescue. "Perhaps the sun turned his brains. He was talking like a lunatic, and then he seized me. He wanted to—" Encouraged in her embroidery of the details by Jesse's tiny nod, she added "—force me."

The words came out sounding weak, but that was all the better for Mrs. Lane's story. With cries of concern, two of the neighbor women surged forward and pulled her from the room, already clucking with sympathy and overflowing with platitudes. The men joined Jesse and Bridger in examining the corpse on the floor.

"That harpy's a murderer," Mills said, voice heated.

"Don't be a fool, man," Flannigan said. "You saw the state of her. And, sure, she's only a woman, after all. Just thank God that she was lucky with her doodad. This George fellow got what was coming to him."

"No wonder Mrs. Lane didn't want to stay down at Los Robles," one of the neighbors said. "And here I thought—" Without finishing his conjectures, he shook his head. "If this doesn't beat all. We'll have to get a few of the fellows together to sit a coroner's jury this evening."

"Trust a woman not to drag him out when she's done," another commented. Most of the men laughed.

The first neighbor said, "Now, don't be harsh, man. The poor little lady's had a rough time of it."

Flannigan shrugged. "I'm thinking we'd better get him over to Hurley's and into a box. It's terribly warm for March." He looked up at Jesse and Bridger. "Here, now, give us a hand."

Jesse had spent some hard time dealing with dead bodies down through the years. Given the circumstances, this wasn't bad at all.

***

They had to brave a next-door matron when they visited Mrs. Lane in her parlor later that afternoon. When they entered, she was reclining on the sofa with a bottle of smelling salts on her lap that she was ignoring. However, she roused herself to firmly shepherd her protesting chaperone out and gently close the door.

"I do think Essie Clegg should know by now that I can take care of myself," she said, before sitting down, spine straight, on the sofa.

"We can't argue with that, ma'am," Bridger said.

Jesse turned a chuckle into a cough, and then asked, "Are you in sufficient health to speak with us, Mrs. Lane?"

"I'm revolted, not incapacitated, Mr.—?"

"Colonel Putnam, ma'am. I'm Ada Gifford's nephew."

"Really. Have you and the Giffords finally learned that nothing is wrong at Los Robles?"

"In a manner of speaking."

She looked at Jesse and then at Bridger for a long few seconds before she said, "Please sit down, gentlemen."

They did, on two spindly oak chairs obviously intended for ladies interested in delightful hats, not men interested in deadly hatpins. Then Mrs. Lane asked, "What, exactly did you mean, Colonel?"

By the time that Jesse had finished his account of what he and Bridger had discovered at Los Robles – sans their more personal revelations – her face had gone from wan to faintly smiling. "I will admit," she said, "that I am relieved to see the last of both Sam and George." There was the briefest of pauses before she got the second name out, but her features stayed calm.

"You picked a good place to use that hatpin, ma'am," Bridger said.

Her reply was almost prim. "Mr. Lane taught me. He, too, thinks that respectable matrons should be able to take care of themselves." Then she frowned. "I believe that now, given his background, I comprehend why he was so concerned." Her disconcertingly sharp gaze was on Jesse and Bridger, gauging their reactions.

Bridger only returned his usual smile. Jesse, for his part, raised his eyebrows in obviously exaggerated incomprehension. She smiled at them both dryly.

"We'll be riding back to Los Robles to go over a few details with Mr. Lane before we leave," Bridger said. "Would you like us to bring any messages back to him, ma'am?"

"Yes." Her hands stayed still on her apron. "You may inform my husband that I have grown altogether weary of Los Angeles, and will be returning to the ranch on Tuesday." She rose to her feet, and they did, too. "And now, if you will see yourselves out, gentlemen? I must see to my mother. Today's fuss has worn her out."

When they'd cleared the town's limits, Jesse told Bridger, "Now I know how Fortinbras must feel at the end of Hamlet, marching into Denmark as a conqueror, only to find that the story's been acted out before he got there."

"We're all the heroes of our own tales," Bridger said.

"Speaking of which, I seem to remember that, when you were discussing your gold rush days, you spoke of losing most of your 'first poke'. First implies a second."

"You have a good memory, Colonel Putnam."

"So my Aunt Ada tells me. I'll take your reply as an assent. In any case, I have a small business proposal to put to you which may have some effect on the report that we give to the Giffords."

"Well," Bridger said meditatively, "when we ride out tomorrow, you can tell me all about your notion."

"I'm sure the eastern cattle can wait a few extra hours," Jesse agreed.

 

XI — In Which All's Well That Ends Well, Especially by a Wharf

 

"Are you certain that you wish me to be the one to speak with Aunt Ada?" Jesse asked. They were waiting in the morning parlor on Rincon Hill again, but on this day the sunlight had shifted away from the windows. In front of them were plates with crumbs and cups emptied of tea. Ada had been delayed by a visit from one of her bankers.

"Jesse, you know that it makes sense for you to talk to her." Bridger looked uncomfortable for perhaps the third time since they had met. It might have been due to the brand new formal collar, but Jesse would bet that Bridger's discomfort was due to the discussion ahead. Bridger really did hate to push his own interests forwards.

Before Jesse could do more than shake his head at this quirk, the door opened and Ada came in. Today her silk morning dress was blue, and the scent wafting around her reminded Jesse of lilacs. They rose to their feet, and Ada settled onto her chaise lounge like thistledown. Her camouflage, as always, was almost perfect.

After five minutes of polite chat about nothing in particular, Ada was ready for business. "I am distressed that Hiram and I didn't consider the effect of Mr. Lane's – Captain Lane's? – war record when we asked him to manage the Los Robles."

"Captain Lane is the correct address," Jesse said. "To be fair, he himself understood the fiscal hazards that would result if it came out that he commanded Negro troops."

"Indeed." Ada said with mild approval. "I am also displeased by this infectious nonsense of the Klu Klux Klan. I shall certainly write to your eldest brother in Washington about them."

Jesse saw from the corner of his eye that Bridger was grinning at him in open amusement. He cleared his throat. "Aunt Ada, I believe I may have a solution to the business difficulties involved."

"Ah?" she asked, and folded one hand over another, meaning that Jesse had about two minutes to summarize his proposition.

"Since Mr. Lane's history would not present such a difficulty – in fact, would be a positive advantage – in much of the northern part of the state, perhaps he would consent to take over the management of my San Rafael acreage."

"But my dear, you have informed your uncle and me in no uncertain terms that you do not like sheep."

Jesse told himself not to break pace. "According to Mr. Bridger, his own manager, Mr. Williams, is quite ambitious and interested in sheep. Los Robles is somewhat larger than the Playa Negra, and is certainly more likely to be crossed by a spur line of some railroad in the foreseeable future." He didn't have to add 'which is why you bought that land."

"And you would replace Mr. Williams, I assume, in a triangle trade?"

Jesse didn't wince. Ada was just probing. At least, he assumed that Ada was just probing. He continued, "Over the last few years, I have developed some ideas about how agriculture should proceed in California, ideas to which Mr. Bridger subscribes. Since testing my notions would be a risk, we would be willing to purchase a controlling interest in the Playa and its herds: perhaps two-thirds?"

Ada tilted her head. "Why, Mr. Bridger. You have capital." The words were almost flirtatious.

Bridger nodded. "Yes, ma'am, a little, here in San Francisco. I just didn't know what to do with it. Colonel Putnam was kind enough to suggest that I put my money where my skills are."

"Well." Ada reached for her fan, opened it, and waved it gently as she spoke. "You gentlemen have certainly given us something to think about. Although I'm surprised that you are willing to take on a partner, Jesse."

Sometimes the only way to survive sniping fire was to ignore it while deploying forward. Ada could be much the same. "We'd need to build a wharf."

"We can discuss your investment plans over luncheon." With a snap of her wrist, Ada shut her fan. "As for Mr. Williams and Captain Lane, your proposals there seem sound. Mr. Williams can explore the possibilities of sheep, and Captain Lane can supervise the San Rafael acres."

She nodded, satisfied. "From your written report, I understand that the Captain is quite fluent in Spanish and has made many useful improvements on the Los Robles that indicate an ability to work without supervision. Perhaps, after a few more years, he might be interested in managing some of our developing interests in Chile?"

Jesse made himself look politely interested. Bridger only smiled.

"But I must not ramble. Your uncle will shortly be home for his luncheon." Ada rose to her feet and they both rose with her. Offering her his arm, Jesse escorted Ada to the dining room.

Whew, Jesse thought. They would certainly earn their free lunch today.

***

"Two months until I arrive at the Playa, Mr. Bridger," Jesse said, and worked Bridger's cock a little harder.

"I'm just glad you have a good lead hand to take over until the Lanes arrive," Bridger said, his voice rough.

"You'll need to appoint a lead hand of your own. I don't know enough about horses to manage the day-to-day operations on the Playa after Williams leaves. The wharf will be my initial responsibility, along with the rest of the expansion."

"Oh," Bridger said, or maybe it was "Ah."

Too loud in either case: the Lick Hotel was particular about its reputation. "Shh," Jesse said. In support of his command, he leaned forward and kissed Bridger.

He hadn't kissed anyone like this since his wife died. No, not even back then had he kissed anyone like this. Bridger's lips were supple and his mouth was warm, but his new mustache scratched. Jesse worked Bridger's lips apart and proceeded to devastate the unfamiliar terrain. Dimly, he was aware that he'd released Bridger's cock and that they were now lying back on the bed together, working against each other, trying to devour each other.

Jesse pulled his head back and gasped. He looked down. Bridger's lips were swollen. His eyes were bright, and there was nothing at all gentle about his smile. He worked his hips underneath Jesse's, and there was nothing gentle about that, either. Jesse squeezed Bridger's legs between his own, and ground down hard.

"Jesse," Bridger said, and Jesse loved the way he hissed out the sibilants. He bit at Bridger's neck, at his ear, at his mouth, first gently and then more roughly. Bridger was pounding on his shoulders and back, yanking at his clothing, shoving a hand under Jesse's trousers and drawers to grope at his ass. They'd both dropped the reins. Who would have thought this loss of control, this tearing and mauling at each other's bodies, would be the result of a growing friendship? Not Jesse.

He couldn't think. His cock was so very engorged. So was Bridger's, and it felt wonderful against Jesse's. Bridger made strangled, guttural noises through pressed-together lips and then his mouth opened to gasp; Jesse closed the lips again with his own and felt Bridger's cock spending, the warmth of spunk against his own cock and clothing, the huff of breath as Bridger was forced to breathe through his nose. How good it was when Bridger writhed beneath him as he finished. How good it was afterwards as Bridger sprawled in lascivious relaxation while Jesse grunted and thrust against him. How good it was to spend against Bridger with the vaquero's arms wrapped around him, completing the ruination of both their evening suits.

"We're not eating in the dining room tonight," Jesse said afterwards, as they lay holding each other loosely, as if they didn't believe that they could actually embrace.

"Too bad. I wanted to try that antelope steak," Bridger said.

Jesse smacked him. "You wouldn't like the company anyhow." They laughed.

Maybe this would never work, the ranch would go bankrupt, and they'd end up snarling at each other like two yellow dogs tied together by their tails. Or maybe they'd be white-haired land barons, straddling silver-studded saddles as they rode around their rich acres with mysterious smiles on their faces. Jesse didn't know. He didn't need to know because he already had what he wanted the most.

"The lies," he said to Bridger.

"What's that, Jesse?" Bridger's eyelids snapped open.

"That's what I learned on this quest of ours. It's the lies that I hate about being a sodomite." Awkwardly, now that they weren't in the midst of fornicating, Jesse leaned over for a kiss. The lips against his own smiled, and Jesse pulled back to say, "I don't always have to lie, though, not all the time."

"Like I said, you're a fast learner."

Jesse nudged a leg against Bridger and grinned. "Not as fast as I'd prefer. But at least I've learned about one time when I don't need a mask: when I'm riding with you." And for that, Jesse could only be truly grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published commercially through a small press, but all rights have reverted to me, where they remain. The usual fandom, not-for-profit permissions apply. Given the obvious fannish influences and tropes, it seemed possible to post it here. I hope you enjoy!


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